漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements
祭: ritual, offer prayers
Also: celebrate, deify, enshrine, worship
示 carries the meaning · 月 is drawn in
Bronze · Western Zhou Today
Bronze: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Four readings, and the words that use each
サイsai · on'yomi · in compounds
- 祭日さいじつnational holiday, festival day
- 文化祭ぶんかさいCulture Festival
- 芸術祭げいじゅつさいart festival
- 前夜祭ぜんやさいthe eve of a festival
まつるmatsuru · kun'yomi · on its own
- 祭るまつるdeify, enshrine
まつりmatsuri · kun'yomi
- 祭りまつりfestival
まつりmatsuri · kun'yomi
- 雛祭ひなまつりGirls' (dolls') Festival
- 夏祭なつまつりsummer festival
Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Ideogrammic compound (會意)肉 meat + 又 hand + 示 altar, ceremony
The hand offers a piece of meat at the altar during a ceremony.
Source: Wiktionary, 祭 (rev. 93450638), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Meat + hand + altar (示). The classic image of a "hand" placing "meat" on an "altar" to "celebrate" a formal festival or rite.”
Connections
In ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · jì
Same form: 祭 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 祭 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 祭 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin jì most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.