須 means “must, necessary”

す · su

Also: ought, by all means, necessarily

Kun'yomi (Japanese reading)

すべからく, すべし, ひげ, まつ, もちいる

On'yomi (Chinese reading)

ス, シュ

JLPT N1 · Taught in secondary school · 12 strokes

The story

Hair (彡) beside a head (頁): 須 once meant a beard. Borrowed for its sound, it came to mean "must": 必須 marks the required fields of a Japanese web form, 須く is a bookish "by rights", and the side-handled teapot is a 急須.

Used in 必須 (hissu, required/essential), 急須 (kyuusu, Japanese teapot), and 須く (subekaraku, by rights/ought to)

More from Formal Words

• 殊 especially
• 尚 still
• 那 that
• 該 the said
• 弥 more and more
• 如 like
• 宜 fitting
• 猶 delay
• 又 again
• 甚 extremely
• 但 however
• 且 moreover

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