骸 means “bones, remains”

がい · gai

Also: bone, body, corpse

Kun'yomi (Japanese reading)

むくろ

On'yomi (Chinese reading)

ガイ, カイ

JLPT N1 · Taught in secondary school · 16 strokes

The story

Bone (骨) beside 亥, the boar of the zodiac: picture a skeleton picked clean. 骸骨 is a skeleton, 残骸 is wreckage, and a rule kept only on paper has gone through 形骸化, become a hollow shell.

Used in 骸骨 (gaikotsu, skeleton), 残骸 (zangai, wreckage), and 形骸化 (keigaika, becoming an empty formality)

More from Graves & Mourning

• 遺 leave behind
• 葬 funeral
• 喪 mourning
• 墓 grave
• 悼 grieve
• 墳 burial mound
• 弔 mourn
• 忌 shun
• 逝 pass away
• 殉 die for a cause
• 棺 coffin
• 訃 news of a death

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Readings from KANJIDIC2, © EDRDG, CC BY-SA.