発 is a level 9 kanji, and there are 20 vocab words on the site that use it, but none of them use the ほつ reading.
ほつ is an older reading for the kanji than はつ, so words that were imported to Japan initially came over with this reading. Later words got the はつ reading.
Since it’s older, it also appears in some Buddhist terminology I won’t bother going into here.
発作 (ほっさ) - fit, spasm, seizure
てんかん発作 (てんかんほっさ) - epileptic seizure
心臓発作 (しんぞうほっさ) - heart attack [the more medical-sounding word is 心筋梗塞 しんきんこうそく, like myocardial infarction]
発足 (ほっそく) starting, inauguration, launch, establishment
発端 (ほったん) - origin, genesis, opening, start
発起 (ほっき) - promotion, proposal
発起人 (ほっきにん) - originator, promoter
一念発起 (いちねんほっき) - being resolved to (do something); having a wholehearted intention
Here are some more examples you’ve probably heard:
物音
物語
物足りない
物真似
And some less common ones.
物寂しい
物悲しい
物哀れ
物忘れ
物知り
物腰
物静か
物分かり
物思い
The connection isn’t obvious at first but the prefix 物 gives the word a sense of vagueness. The Japanese word なんとなく is used in many JP sources to describe this feeling.
物音: sounds coming from somewhere
物語: talking about something
物足りない: the feeling that something isn’t enough
Huh, forgot about 物語. Thats pretty funny actually. But does 物音 count? Wouldn’t have thought of that as the 物 prefix. 物腰 and 物分かり too. 物分かり makes sense with your explanation but I wouldnt have guessed for 物腰
My best guess for 物腰 is that 腰 (ごし) means attitude (according to jisho) and 物腰 is a more broad version of that (manner, demeanor). While 腰 applies to only one situation, 物腰 is a personality trait.
Just to clear up any ambiguity, what I mean by “vague” in all these explanations is that the source is unknown, unspecified, or broad.
I really like how you included your first post in this post. Are you going to keep doing that? Keeping a list of “Things WaniKani doesnt teach you”. I really like this also, keep up the great work! 頑張って！
