Meaning & readings

decline, wane, weaken

On’yomi スイ
Kun’yomi おとろ.える

Origin

This character appears to show a person (the left side) with something collapsing or falling away (the right side). The idea is that when a person's strength or vitality falls away or crumbles, they experience decline and weakness. The visual structure captures the sense of something solid becoming unstable and deteriorating, which matches the meaning of waning or weakening over time.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.

10 strokes

Components

This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (衰).

  • meaning part

Common words

  • 衰弱 すいじゃく weakness; debility
  • 衰退 すいたい decline; degeneration
  • 盛衰 せいすい rise and fall; ups and downs
  • 老衰 ろうすい senility; senile decay
  • 衰え おとろえ weakening; emaciation
  • 衰える おとろえる to become weak; to decline

Reference

Strokes
10
Kangxi radical
145
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1432 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+08870