Meaning & readings
snow
On’yomi セツ
Kun’yomi ゆき
Nanori せっ、ぶき
Origin
This character combines rain (雨) at the top with a simplified form representing accumulated flakes or crystals below it. Snow is essentially a special kind of precipitation, so placing the rain radical at the top makes sense as a classifier showing this is a weather phenomenon. The lower component suggests the texture or piled-up nature of snow itself. Together, the two parts create a visual and conceptual picture of what snow is: frozen rain that collects and builds up on the ground.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Components
- 雨
- ⺕
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 173
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1131 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+096EA