Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Human Body & People

骨: skeleton, bone

Also: remains, frame

JLPT N210 strokesGrade 6Your ink: 白 Not met
10 strokes
  • Oracle bone · Shang
  • Bronze · Shang
  • Small seal · Qin
  • Today

Oracle bone and bronze: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Small seal: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Two readings, and the words that use each

コツkotsu · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 骨格こっかくphysique, build frame
  • 骨髄こつずいmarrow, true spirit
  • 白骨はっこつbleached white bone
  • 遺骨いこつremains, ashes of deceased
  • 骸骨がいこつskeleton
  • 鉄骨てっこつsteel frame
  • 骨折するこっせつするbreak a bone

ほねhone · kun'yomi · on its own

  • 骨ほねbone
  • 骨っぽいほねっぽいbony, tough, plucky
  • 骨組みほねぐみskeleton, framework
  • 骨惜しみほねおしみsparing oneself laziness

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)冎 (sound) + 肉 (meaning)

冎 is the original pictogram for this character; 肉 was added later to distinguish.

Source: Wiktionary, 骨 (rev. 92717163), CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“The base kanji for the hard, physical structure of the body or the core "essence" of an idea or a situation.”
From the 骨 bone story
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
月

Also built on meat (月)

All 63

骨 gives its sound to

The family reading is コツ (kotsu). Sound parts: KanjiVG.

Also read コツ

3 kanji share this on'yomi
In ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · gǔ

Same form: 骨 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).

Simplified
骨 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
骨 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin gǔ 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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