Meaning & readings

regiment, party, company, squad

On’yomi タイ

Origin

The left component is the "mound" or "hill" radical, which here serves as a general classifier for things that are grouped or gathered together. The right side is a sound hint that tells you roughly how to pronounce the character — it does not contribute meaning on its own. By combining the idea of "gathering" with this sound component, the character came to mean a military unit or organized group of people, like a regiment or squad.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

12 strokes

Components

  • radical left
  • 1+4+豕 sound hint right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 楽隊 がくたい band; orchestra
  • 艦隊 かんたい (naval) fleet; armada
  • 軍隊 ぐんたい armed forces; military
  • 隊員 たいいん troops; group members
  • 隊長 たいちょう commanding officer
  • 大隊 だいたい battalion
  • 中隊 ちゅうたい company; battery
  • 部隊 ぶたい force; unit

Reference

Strokes
12
Kangxi radical
170
Grade
Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#605 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+0968A