背

Translingual

Stroke order

Etymology

Phono-semantic compound (形聲): semantic ⺼ (“meat, body”) + phonetic 北

Han character

背 (radical 130 肉+5, 9 strokes, cangjie input 中心月 (LPB), four-corner 1122₇, composition ⿱北月)

1. back
2. back side
3. behind
4. betray

References

• KangXi: page 977, character 21
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 29363
• Dae Jaweon: page 1429, character 11
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 3, page 2058, character 4
• Unihan data for U+80CC

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Cantonese

Hanzi

背 (Yale bui3)

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Japanese

Kanji

背

(grade 6 “Kyōiku” kanji)

Readings

• On: はい (hai)
• Kun: せ (se), そむく (somuku), せい (sei)

Noun

背 (hiragana せ, romaji se)

1. one's back (part of the human body)
2. one's height
3. the rear of something, the area behind

Synonyms

• (part of the body): 背中

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Korean

Hanja

背 (hangeul 배, 패 (bae, pae), revised bae, pae, McCune-Reischauer pae, p'ae, Yale pay, phay)

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Mandarin

Hanzi

背 (Pinyin bèi (bei4), Wade-Giles pei⁴)

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Vietnamese

Han character

背 (bối, bội, bổi, bồi)