災

Stroke order

災 (Kangxi radical 86, 火+3, 7 strokes, cangjie input 女女火 (VVF), four-corner 2280₉, composition ⿱巛火)

• 𨓌, 𨉒, 𤑹, 𭴠

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 666, character 18
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 18879
• Dae Jaweon: page 1075, character 23
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 3, page 2190, character 6
• Unihan data for U+707D

• Unihan data for U+2F918

Ideogrammic compound (會意／会意) : 巛 (“flowing water”) + 火 (“fire”) – two main types of disaster, fire (conflagration) and flowing water (flooding).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tsa-t ~ dza-t (“hot, fever, hurt, ill, temper”); cognate with Burmese ဆာ (hca, “hungry, thirsty”), Tibetan ཚ (tsha, “hot, intense”), and 菑 (OC *ʔsrɯ, *ʔsɯː, *ʔsɯː, “field cleared by slash and burn”) (STEDT), which is its r-causative (Schuessler, 2007).

災

1. (literary, or in compounds) calamity; disaster; catastrophe
2. (literary, or in compounds) personal misfortune
3. (literary, or in compounds) stricken; disaster-affected; disaster-afflicted

• (calamity):

• “災”, 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–

(Fifth grade kyōiku kanji)

• Go-on: さい (sai, Jōyō)
• Kan-on: さい (sai, Jōyō)
• Kun: わざわい (wazawai, 災い, Jōyō)^{←わざはひ (wazafafi, 災ひ, historical)}

From Middle Chinese 災 (MC tsoj, “calamity”).

• IPA^(key):

災(さい) • (sai) 

1. an act of God, a disaster, a calamity

• Seldom used on its own. Most often used in compounds.

/wazapapi/ → /wazaɸaɸi/ → /wazawahi/ → /wazawai/

From Old Japanese. Originally a compound of 業(わざ) (waza, “deed, doings”), in reference to the doings of the 神(かみ) (kami, “gods, spirits”) + 這(は)い (hai, “spreading widely”, literally “crawling”).^[1] Compare the etymology of 幸(さきわい) (sakiwai, “good fortune”). Compare also the connotations of the English term act of God in reference to disasters.

Often spelled 災(わざわ)い (wazawai) with the trailing okurigana い (i) to make the reading more explicit.

• (Tokyo) わざわい (Heiban – )^[2]
• IPA^(key):

災(わざわい) • (wazawai) ^{←わざはひ (wazafafi)?}

1. an act of God, a disaster, a calamity

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “Middle Korean readings, if any”)

• (SK Standard/Seoul) IPA^(key): ~
• Phonetic hangul:

Korean Wikisource has texts containing the hanja:

災

Wikisource

災 (eumhun 재앙 재 (jaeang jae))

1. hanja form^? of 재 (“disaster”)

• 재앙 (災殃, jaeang, “disaster”)

災: Hán Nôm readings: tai

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.