Chinese Character Wiki
灾

zāi

calamity

Depicts a fire (火) burning a building (宀).

Components
宀 iconic component

宀  Iconic component

mián

  

roof

火 iconic component

火  Iconic component

huǒ

  

fire

Evolution

灾 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
灾 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
灾 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
灾 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

灾 (災) 

zāi

calamity, disaster, catastrophe; disaster; calamity

灾 (烖) 

zāi

variant of 災|灾[zāi]

灾 (菑) 

zāi

old variant of 災|灾[zāi]

Most common words with 灾
Freq.
Word
Meaning

灾难

disaster

火灾

fire (that burns buildings etc)

灾

disaster

灾害

calamity

救灾

to relieve disaster

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[ts]ˤə

tsoj

zāi

calamity


Statistics

HSK level 5

Appears in 17.0591% of movies

1542nd most common character in movies

1349th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

7

Traditional

災

Unicode

U+707E

Shuowen

“烖，天火曰烖。从火，聲。灾，或从宀、火；，古文从才；災，籀文从。”


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