滞 means “stagnate, stay, be overdue”

たい · tai

Also: be delayed, overdue, arrears

Kun'yomi (Japanese reading)

とどこおる

On'yomi (Chinese reading)

タイ, テイ

JLPT N1 · Taught in secondary school · 13 strokes

The story

Water (氵) held back by a belt (帯): it pools and stops moving. 渋滞 is the traffic jam on every holiday expressway, 滞在 is a stay at a hotel or in a country, and when payments 滞る they fall behind.

Used in 渋滞 (juutai, traffic jam), 滞在 (taizai, stay), and 停滞 (teitai, stagnation)

More from Routes & Returns

• 沿 run along
• 巡 go around
• 往 go
• 軌 track
• 逸 deviate
• 搬 carry
• 循 circulate
• 旋 revolve
• 迭 replace
• 遷 move
• 遡 go upstream
• 臨 face

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

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