sack
sack
🇰🇷
Korean
dae
🇯🇵
On'yomi
tai
タイ
Kun'yomi
fukuro
ふくろ
🇨🇳
Pinyin
dài

It's made of..

Several parts combine into one character.

2 components
above
Substitute
below
garment

The stroke order..

11 strokes · 7.6s
This character..

袋 is a phonetic-semantic compound: 衣 (clothing / fabric) + 代 (dài, "substitute / generation" — providing the sound). The composite reads as "something made from cloth as a container" = sack, pouch, bag. Note that 袋 (sack) and 帯 (sash) share the same Korean reading "dae" and Mandarin reading dài but are etymologically and visually distinct characters.

Korean reading "dae." 麻袋 (madae, "hemp-sack" = gunny sack / burlap sack — used for grain storage and traditional Korean wrestling matches), 包袋 (podae, sack), 氣袋 (gidae, gas pouch). Korean uses pure hangeul (jaru) or (bongji) for everyday "sack" or "bag."

Mandarin dài, 4th tone. 袋 (dài, sack), 袋子 (dàizi, bag — generic), 口袋 (kǒudài, "mouth-bag" = pocket — both clothing pockets and metaphorical "in your pocket"), 塑料袋 (sùliàodài, "plastic bag" — increasingly regulated under China's anti-pollution policies), 背袋 (bèidài, backpack). 袋 is everyday vocabulary in modern Chinese shopping and household contexts.

Japanese on-reading タイ (tai) appears in compounds like 寝袋 (nebukuro — but this actually uses kun-reading; also written 寝袋 with rendaku from fukuro to bukuro). Kun-reading ふくろ (fukuro) — 袋 (fukuro, bag / sack), 紙袋 (kamibukuro, paper bag — with rendaku), 手袋 (tebukuro, "hand-bag" = gloves — straightforward Japanese coinage), 福袋 (fukubukuro, "lucky bag" — the Japanese New Year tradition where stores sell mystery bags of merchandise at heavy discount; major retail event in Japanese consumer culture). And the wonderfully colloquial お袋 (ofukuro, "honored sack" = an affectionate informal term for "mom" — used by men, somewhat dated, evoking the warm gender-coded image of mother as the bearer / container of family. お袋の味 ofukuro no aji = "mom's home cooking flavor"). Few CJK characters generate as warmly idiomatic a meaning as ofukuro.

Memory aid: clothing fabric (衣) plus 代 (sound) — what fabric is folded into to hold things = a pouch.

Where you'll meet it..

🇰🇷Korean vocabulary
  • 麻袋마대 · madaegunny sack
  • 包袋포대 · podaesack
🇯🇵Japanese vocabulary
  • ふくろ · fukurobag / sack
  • 紙袋かみぶくろ · kamibukuropaper bag
  • お袋おふくろ · ofukuromom (informal)
🇨🇳Chinese vocabulary
  • 袋子dàizibag
  • 口袋kǒudàipocket
  • 塑料袋sùliàodàiplastic bag

Nearby characters..

bagbagGenerationgeneration
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