Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Animals & Wildlife

斎: purification, Buddhist food

Also: room, worship, avoid, alike

JLPT N111 strokesSecondary schoolYour ink: 白 Not met

示 carries the meaning · 斉 gives the sound

11 strokes
  • Small seal · Qin
  • Today

Small seal: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Two readings, and the words that use each

サイsai · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 斎場さいじょうfuneral hall
  • 書斎しょさいstudy; library; den

いむimu · kun'yomi · on its own

  • 斎いみmourning; abstinence

Also read とき, つつしむ, ものいみ, いわう, いつく, with no example words in our sources. Words: JMdict, EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Learn it 4 steps
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成り立ち

Where it comes from

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Civilization begins with a single mark. Whether it’s a beautiful pattern on a piece of pottery or a word inscribed on a page, this radical is the soul of human culture.”
More in the 文 literature story
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
斉

Also built on adjusted (斉)

斎 takes the 斉 family's reading, サイ (sai).

示

Also built on altar (示)

All 8

Also read サイ

30 kanji share this on'yomiAll 30

Easy to confuse

The difference, side by side
斎 purification · 示
vs済 settle (debt, etc.) · 氵
斎 has 示 where 済 has 氵.
In ChineseSimplified 斋 · traditional 齋 · zhāi

Three different forms: Japanese 斎, simplified 斋, traditional 齋.

Simplified
斋 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
齋 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin zhāi most common reading

Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.

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