Jisho lists exactly two words which would use this kanji if the writer felt like working extra hard and not using kana:
噤む to shut one’s mouth
口を噤む to shut up
It is not an unattractive kanji. It is a shame that is not used more. Poor thing.
締
I get stressed out by 締め切り
秘
Secret.
秘訣 secret method
便秘 constipation
秘密結社 a secret society
Don’t confuse it with this:
泌
There aren’t too many kanji that are easily confused by both similarities in kanji and similarities in WK definition.
秘 secret
泌 secrete
Perhaps the secret is buried in a field of grain, but there is a tsunami of secretion.
yuk.
率
Similar to 楽, this is one of those kanji that has separate readings for its different meanings.
However, WaniKani only teaches the percentage meaning, and correspondingly only uses the りつ reading. There is also a そつ reading, though it seems that several of those words can use 卒 instead.
Speaking of りつ, that is a relatively distinctive kanji reading, with only 4 representatives in the 常用漢字:
- 立
- 率
- 律
- 慄 (not in WK)
The next kanji is multiple-choice! Pick whichever one you want to talk about.
立・律・慄
I want to talk about this one, because it’s nuts! Chestnuts(栗), to be specific. Apparently, if these get stuck in your heart [radical], it’ll make you cower / flinch / tremble with fear. My dictionary knows only a single word that uses it: 慄然(りつぜん)とする - to be horrified / with horror.
Thankfully, if you cut out the heart and plant the chestnuts instead, you might end up with what’s been called one of Japan’s most beautiful gardens: 栗林公園、located relatively close to the 八栗寺。Both are located in Takamatsu, Shikoku. Therefore, next in line is
松
That is just a public tree, I don’t know…
=
cloud cloud cloud = 䨺 clouds
dragon dragon dragon = 龘 flying dragon
It’s apparently the kanji with the highest stroke count…
Let’s zoom in a bit with
牙
Looks like a backwards Team Rocket logo, if Team Rocket were specifically coded as Russian. I had to Google it, because I do not know that one (yet!). I kinda like it! Now it it kinda looks like an elephant head, a TUSK, and a trunk (it is facing toward the left).
The next kanji is also very pictogram-y:
串
In modern-day Japanese, 串 is (as far as I’m aware) primarily associated with skewers of the culinary variety, and it sure does look like one.
However, it is thought (see for example Seely & Henshall) that this character originally represented “items such as shell currency on a cord”. The meaning of “pierce” came later, and I would presume that the meaning of “skewer” was a further extension of that.
There was another hanzi with the meaning of “pierce”, namely 毌, which looked quite similar to 串 in early Shange dynasty inscriptions. However, 毌 now primarily lives on as a component, such as 貫.
… and speaking of things that look kind of like 田, I’ll suggest:
胃
This kanji is used for all things “stomach”. It is nearly always voiced with its 音読み, い.
I read that stomach is one of the 28 mansions of Chinese astronomy. But what are the other mansions?
袋
WK mnemonic is something about keeping your substitute clothes in a sack.
Here are a few random words:
Word | kana | definition |
---|---|---|
袋 | ふくろ | bag, sack, skin of orange, dead end |
手袋 | てぶくろ | glove , mitten |
お袋 | おふくろ | one’s mother |
足袋 | たび | tabi socks |
袋小路 | ふくろこうじ | dead end street |
革袋 | かわぶくろ | leather bag |
郵袋 | ゆうたい | mailbag |
浮き袋 | うきぶくろ | swim belt |
買物袋 | かいものぶくろ | shopping bag |
紙袋 | かみぶくろ | paper bag |
知恵袋 | fount of knowledge, smart person in a group |
and my very favorite, which any of you are welcome to buy me for christmas:
地下足袋 じかたび work tabi shoes
Let us go simple:
手
Reading the wikipedia page for this word, I learn that the word for a body part (not necessarily internal, like 内臓, but does include the internal organs), is called a 器官. I also learn that, just like legs and feet, the arm can also often be referred to as 手.
A cute name for hands mainly used with small children, is お手手.
Next up, the first unfamiliar kanji I find in the article:
旋
PS
This character has the meaning of “rotate”, “revolve” or “return”, and appears to combine elements representing a flag (㫃) and a leg and/or foot (疋).
There are a couple of different interpretations of this:
-
Yellow Bridge suggests that this is an ideogrammic compound, representing people marching (疋) under a banner (㫃).
-
Seely & Henshall appear to suggest that 㫃 carries both semantic and phonetic value, with the association of going round (as a streamer or banner flutters back and forth but is ultimately attached to a pole).
As a mnemonic, you can imagine a dancer with a flag on his/her leg, twirling around and around.
Now, as we spin right round, baby, right round, like a record, let’s take a look at:
盤
In WK mnemonics, this is a boat and a weapon on a plate. It is pretty easy to remember, because it gets ばん from 般, and the meaning tray from 皿.
This kanji is used for lots of very particular flat parts of things, like circuit boards (<分電盤>[ぶんでんばん], electric panel) and game boards (<碁>[ご]<盤>[ばん], go board), <骨盤>[こつばん] the pelvis, <地盤>[じばん] a footing on a building.
My favorite however, is <羅針盤>[らしんばん], because it makes me recall navigating <京都>[きょうと]<県>[けん] with nothing but hand drawn maps and 羅針盤!
羅
The kanji 羅 originally referred to a net for catching birds, although its meaning was later broadened to cover silk gauze, thin silk and lightweight clothing, which seems to be its primary use in Japanese.
羅 can be broken down into either two or three components:
- 网 (net) + 維 (tie, fasten)
- 网 (net) + 糸 (thread) + 隹 (bird)
Wiktionary uses the two-component explanation, while both Yellow Bridge and Seely-Henshall use the three-component explanation.
I’m also inclined to use the three-component form, as the 隹 component appears to be important to the meaning of 羅, whereas it is arguably less important to the meaning of 維 (where it appears to be functioning as a phonetic component, although that doesn’t necessarily make it irrelevant to the meaning). Indeed, in its oracle bone form, 羅 doesn’t even have an 糸 component, so I don’t think one can really say that it is derived from 維.
The character appears in two (at least) words for compass, 羅針盤 and 羅針儀, which can be thought of as “(board/device) that catches a needle”.
It is also used as ateji in word such as 天麩羅 (てんぷら) and 羅馬 (ローマ). The first of these makes sense with its jōyō-list on’yomi, ら. The second one doesn’t match up as well, but it may be borrowed directly from Chinese, where 羅馬 is pronounced Luómǎ.
Next, let’s go with …
枠
(Edit: I originally suggested 嘴 as the next one, but it’s barely used and not all that interesting from what I can tell, so I figured I’d replace it with 枠. Feel free to choose whichever one you like.)
枠
わく, frame/framework similar to border 外枠 haven’t learnt this one yet though, had to research it
どうぞ
凸
凸 looks like the sideview of a lego.
卒