海

海 U+FA45, 海 CJK COMPATIBILITY IDEOGRAPH-FA45 ← 梅 CJK Compatibility Ideographs 渚 →

Stroke order

In Chinese, the bottom right component is 母 with 2 dots, yielding 海. In Japanese shinjitai, this component is simplified to 毋 (1 cross stroke), yielding 海 (氵+毎). Both forms are encoded under the same Unicode codepoint – see Han unification.

海 (Kangxi radical 85, 水+7 in Chinese and Korean, 水+6 in Japanese, 10 strokes in Chinese and Korean, 9 strokes in Japanese, cangjie input 水人田卜 (EOWY) or 水人田十 (EOWJ), four-corner 3815₇, composition ⿰氵每(GHTKV or U+FA45) or ⿰氵毎(J or U+2F901))

• 嗨, 𢲨, 𤍃, 𫗀, 𥉪, 𤀇, 𦷫, 𬕧, 𩘫, 塰

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 625, character 14
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 17450
• Dae Jaweon: page 1023, character 11
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 3, page 1627, character 1
• Unihan data for U+6D77

• Unihan data for U+FA45

• Unihan data for U+2F901

Wikipedia has articles on:

• 海 (Written Standard Chinese^?)
• 海姓 (Written Standard Chinese^?)
• 海 (Cantonese)
• 海 (Gan)
• Hāi (Hakka)
• Hái (Southern Min)
• 海 (Wu)

Historical forms of the character 海
Western Zhou	Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)	Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Bronze inscriptions	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 / 形声, OC *hmlɯːʔ) : semantic 氵 (“water”) + phonetic 每 (OC *mɯːʔ).

Probably related to 晦 (OC *hmɯːs, “dark”); in numerous Zhou texts 海 is described as 晦 (Schuessler, 2007). Compare the parallelism in Chinese: 溟 (OC *meːŋ, *meːŋʔ, “ocean”) < 冥 (OC *meːŋ, “dark”).

STEDT compares 海 (OC *hmlɯːʔ) to Proto-Sino-Tibetan *muːŋ ~ r/s-muːk (“foggy; dark; sullen; menacing; thunder”).

海

1. sea; ocean

   好想去看海。  ―  Hǎo xiǎng qù kàn hǎi.  ―  I really want to go and look at the sea.

2. big lake

   洱海  ―  Ěrhǎi  ―  Er Lake

   北京的北海  ―  Běijīng de Běihǎi  ―  Beihai Lake, Beijing

3. (Cantonese) wide river, especially the Pearl River
4. (of containers, amount, etc.) big; large

   海碗  ―  hǎiwǎn  ―  extra large bowl

   海量  ―  hǎiliàng  ―  huge amount

   海投  ―  hǎi tóu  ―  to send résumés to many companies; to use shotgun approach in job hunting

   海扁  ―  hǎi biǎn  ―  (slang) to beat someone tremendously

   海咪咪  ―  hǎi mīmī  ―  (slang) big boobs

5. overseas; abroad

   海棗／海枣  ―  hǎizǎo  ―  date palm

6. (figurative) sea; abundance; infiniteness

   人海  ―  rénhǎi  ―  huge crowd

   火海  ―  huǒhǎi  ―  sea of flames

7. (dialectal, colloquial) profuse; numerous
8. (dialectal, colloquial) unrestrainedly; randomly; casually
9. a surname. Hai (mainland China, Taiwan), Hoi (Hong Kong)

   海瑞  ―  Hǎi Ruì  ―  Hai Rui (Chinese scholar-official of the Ming dynasty)

Others:

• → Bouyei: haaic
• → Zhuang: haij

• “海”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎, 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–

Shinjitai	海
Kyūjitai [1]	海 海 or 海+︀?
	海󠄀 海+󠄀? (Adobe-Japan1)
	海󠄃 海+󠄃? (Hanyo-Denshi) (Moji_Joho)
The displayed kanji may be different from the image due to your environment. See here for details.

(Second grade kyōiku kanji, shinjitai kanji, kyūjitai form 海)

1. sea, ocean
2. vastly gathered
3. large, wide

• Go-on: かい (kai, Jōyō)
• Kan-on: かい (kai, Jōyō)
• Kun: うみ (umi, 海, Jōyō)、わた (wata, 海)、わだ (wada, 海)
• Nanori: あ (a)、あま (ama)、うな (una)、うみ (umi)、うん (un)、え (e)、か (ka)、た (ta)、ひろ (hiro)、ひろし (hiroshi)、ぶ (bu)、まち (machi)、まま (mama)、み (mi)、め (me)、わたる (wataru)

Japanese Wikipedia has an article on:

海

Wikipedia ^ja

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Sea

Wikipedia

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Ocean

Wikipedia

⟨umi₁⟩ → */umij/ → /umi/

From Old Japanese, theorized as descending from Proto-Japonic *omi.

Has been thought to have been derived from a compound. There are two leading theories regarding the ultimate derivation:

• Shift from 大 (ō-, “big, great”) + 水 (mi, “water”, combining form).^[2]

This is problematic phonetically because there is no known term having a related shift from /opo/ → /oː/ → /o/ → /u/, and semantically as there already exists a compound 大水 (ōmizu, “flood”).

• From う (u-, stem indicating “ocean”) + 水 (mi, “water”, combining form). The u- stem is evident in 魚 (uo, “fish”) and 潮 (ushio, “salt water; tide”), and in the 海 (una) element in various ancient terms (see below).^[3]

• (Tokyo) うみ (Atamadaka – )^[4][5]
• IPA^(key):

海(うみ) • (umi) 

1. a sea, an ocean

   Antonym: 陸 (oka, riku)

   海(うみ)の中(なか)にはいろんな生(い)き物(もの)が暮(く)らしています。

   Umi no naka ni wa ironna ikimono ga kurashiteimasu.

   There are all sorts of creatures living in the sea.

   海(うみ)に行(い)こうよ！

   Umi ni ikō yo!

   Let's go to the beach!

2. a lake

   Synonym: 湖 (mizuumi)

3. (figurative) an object covering over a large area, as in 血の海 (chi no umi, “pool of blood”) or 火の海 (hi no umi, “sea of fire”)
4. (planetology) a mare (dark surface of a celestial body, thought to appear like a sea)
5. (calligraphy) in a 硯 (suzuri, “inkstone”), a reservoir where water is stored

   Synonym: 池 (ike)

• This is the most common general term in modern Japanese for sea or ocean.

• 海(うみ)を渡(わた)る (umi o wataru, “cross over the ocean → go to a foreign country”)

海(うみ) • (Umi) 

1. a female given name

From Old Japanese. Thought to be comprised of う (u-, stem indicating “ocean”) + な (na, ancient alternative form of the possessive particle の (no)).^[6] The u- stem is also evident in 魚 (uo, “fish”) and 潮 (ushio, “salt water; tide”).

First cited to the Nihon Shoki of 720 CE.^[6]

• IPA^(key):

海(うな) • (una-) 

1. of the sea, of the ocean

From Old Japanese.

Probably related to Korean 바다 (bada, “ocean, sea”); perhaps an ancient Koreanic borrowing into Japanese.

Also read as wada.^[7]

• (Tokyo) わた (Heiban – )^[7]
• (Tokyo) わた (Odaka – )^[7]
• IPA^(key):

海(わた) • (wata) 

1. (obsolete) sea, ocean

Either cognate with 水 (mi, “water”), or an abbreviation of umi above.

• IPA^(key):

海(み) • (mi) 

1. (obsolete) sea, ocean

• 温(あつ)海(み) (Atsumi)

From Middle Chinese 海 (MC xojX).

• IPA^(key):

海(かい) • (kai) 

1. sea; ocean