Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Animals & Wildlife

貧: poverty, poor

JLPT N311 strokesGrade 5Your ink: 白 Not met

貝 carries the meaning · 分 gives the sound

11 strokes

Three readings, and the words that use each

ヒンhin · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 貧血ひんけつanemia
  • 貧困ひんこんpoverty
  • 貧富ひんぷrich and poor
  • 貧弱なひんじゃくなmeagre, insubstantial
  • 貧相なひんそうなseedy-looking

ビンbin · on'yomi

  • 貧乏なびんぼうなpoor
  • 貧乏人びんぼうにんthe poor

まずしいmazushii · kun'yomi · on its own

  • 貧しいまずしいpoor

Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.

Learn it 4 steps
Print sheet Present
成り立ち

Where it comes from

Origin · sourced

Phono-semantic compound (形聲)分 (sound) + 貝 money (meaning)

Since the phonetic means "to divide", a possible mnemonic is "to divide one's money".

Source: Wiktionary, 貧 (rev. 91363346), CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“"Eight" top (八) + shell/money (貝). To divide and "split" one's shells or coins until there is very little left—the state of being poor.”
From the 八 eight story
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
分

Also built on part (分)

The 分 family reads フン (fun); 貧 is read ヒン、ビン.

貝

Also built on shell (貝)

All 38

Also read ヒン

5 kanji share this on'yomi

Also read ビン

3 kanji share this on'yomi

Easy to confuse

The difference, side by side
貧 poverty · 分
vs貿 trade · 卯
貧 has 分 where 貿 has 卯.
In ChineseSimplified 贫 · traditional, as in Japanese · pín

Japan keeps the traditional form 貧; mainland China simplifies it to 贫.

Simplified
贫 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
貧 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin pín 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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