漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements
階: storey, stair
Also: counter for storeys of a building
JLPT N212 strokesGrade 3Your ink: 白 Not met
⻖ carries the meaning · 皆 gives the sound
12 strokes
Small seal · Qin Today
Small seal: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
One reading, and the words that use it
カイkai · on'yomi · in compounds
- 階段かいだんstairs
- 階下かいかlower floor, downstairs
- 階級かいきゅうclass, rank, grade
- 階層かいそうclass, level, stratum, hierarchy
- 地階ちかいbasement, cellar
- 五階ごかいfifth floor
- 各階かくかいeach floor
- 段階だんかいgrade, step, stage
- 音階おんかいmusical scale
Also read きざはし, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
成り立ち
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Phono-semantic compound (形聲)阜, as 阝 (meaning) + 皆 (sound)
Source: Wiktionary, 階 (rev. 92701280), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Hill (阝) + all/together (皆). It originally referred to "all" the steps on a steep "hill" or a mountain path—representing stairs, building floors, or social "rank."”
繋がり
Connections
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
Easy to confuse
The difference, side by side階 storey · ⻖
vs楷 square character style · 木In ChineseSimplified 阶 · traditional, as in Japanese · jiē
Japan keeps the traditional form 階; mainland China simplifies it to 阶.
- Simplified
- 阶 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 階 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin jiē 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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