墓

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grave

On-Yomi: ボ — Kun-Yomi: はか

Elements:

grave, graveyard, flowers, sun, day, large, St. Bernard, soil, dirt, ground

Heisig story:

The mounds of soil with crude wooden crosses set at their head suggests those boot-hill graves we all know from cowboy lore. The only odd thing about this kanji is that the soil comes UNDER the graveyard, rather than to its left, where we might expect. Just think of the bodies as "lying under boot-hill" if you have any trouble. By the way, this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that we learn a kanji whose key word is the same, or almost the same, as a primitive element based on it, but whose shape differs somewhat. There is no cause to worry. By using the primitive in a variety of other characters, as we have done here, the confusion will be averted as a matter of course. In most cases, as here, the primitive element is taken from a part of the fuller kanji.

Koohii stories:

1) [simple] 14-9-2007(212): The soil under a graveyard is full of graves.

2) [mameha1977] 14-10-2007(64): A grave is a patch of soil in a graveyard.

3) [johanvg] 21-7-2006(28): Graves are in the soil beneath the graveyard.

4) [Cirion] 30-6-2008(21): The flowers were blooming, the sun was shining, when I let my St. Bernard off his leash and he lifted his leg and peed ON some freshly turned soil that was dug out for a grave. [Thanks to dwhitman for the idea of the peeing dog because the way the last stroke for 大 is shifted rightwards would mess me up, but if the dog's got his leg up in the air… it's a nice visual image for the change from the primitive graveyard.).

5) [stungunjones] 23-3-2008(11): The soil under the Kakariko graveyard is full of many more things than graves.

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