削 means “shave, whittle, cut down”

けずる · kezuru

Also: plane, sharpen, pare

Kun'yomi (Japanese reading)

けずる, はつる, そぐ

On'yomi (Chinese reading)

サク

JLPT N1 · Taught in secondary school · 9 strokes

The story

A knife (刂) shaving at 肖, a likeness: carving a block until it looks like something. 削る is to whittle or sharpen, a pencil included, 削除 is delete in every app menu, and 削減 is cutting costs or jobs.

Used in 削る (kezuru, to shave/whittle), 削除 (sakujo, deletion), and 削減 (sakugen, reduction/cut)

More from Crumble & Ruin

• 裂 tear
• 陥 fall into
• 滅 perish
• 腐 rot
• 砕 smash
• 朽 decay
• 毀 damage
• 潰 crush
• 綻 come apart
• 壊 break
• 崩 crumble

Learn 削 and more kanji free on Fuji Learning · All kanji

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