Origin

The character 雷 combines rain (雨) stacked on top of a field (田). The rain part makes the meaning clear — this character is about weather phenomena falling from the sky. The field component at the bottom mainly acts as a sound hint, suggesting how the character should be pronounced rather than adding to the meaning. Together, the picture of rain plus this phonetic guide gives us the word for thunder and lightning.

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