Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Animals & Wildlife

買: buy

JLPT N412 strokesGrade 2Your ink: 白 Not met

罒 and 貝 carry the meaning

12 strokes
  • Bronze · Western Zhou
  • Small seal · Qin
  • Today

Bronze and small seal: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Two readings, and the words that use each

バイbai · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 買収するばいしゅうするpurchase, buy, bribe
  • 売買するばいばいするtrade
  • 購買こうばいpurchasing

かうkau · kun'yomi · on its own

  • 買うかうbuy
  • 買い物かいものshopping
  • 買い手かいてbuyer

Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.

Learn it 4 steps
Print sheet Present
成り立ち

Where it comes from

Origin · sourced

Ideogrammic compound (會意)网 net + 貝 money cowrie

The original version is 𧵽.

Source: Wiktionary, 買 (rev. 93527583), CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Network/enclosure (罒) + shell (貝). To bring a valuable "shell" into your "enclosure" or hand—the literal action of buying something.”
From the 貝 shell story
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
罒

Also built on eye (罒)

All 13
貝

Also built on shell (貝)

All 38

買 gives its sound to

The family reading is バイ (bai). Sound parts: KanjiVG.

Also read バイ

12 kanji share this on'yomi
In ChineseSimplified 买 · traditional, as in Japanese · mǎi

Japan keeps the traditional form 買; mainland China simplifies it to 买.

Simplified
买 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
買 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin mǎi 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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