髪

Today’s #kanji is #髪, which is made of its semantic element of #かみがしら（髟） and phonetic element of 犮.

When I was a child, there was a commercial film of a hair tonic (see below) with an animation saying: 抜ぬけ始はじめてわかる髪かみは長ながい友達ともだち (When it starts to fall off, we realize our hair has been our friend for a long time). With the animation, I learned how to write this kanji despite the complexity. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in that.

Meaning: hair
Reading: ハツ（パツ）、かみ

間一髪（カンイッパツ）: adv. narrowly, by a hairbreadth
間一髪のところで、間まに合あった。I narrowly made it.
散髪（サンパツ）: n. a haircut, hairdressing (slightly more colloquial than 理髪 below)
洗髪（センパツ）: a shampoo, washing one’s hair
断髪（ダンパツ）: the cutting of hair, haircutting, bobbed hair, a bob.
断髪式（ダンパツシキ）: a ceremony in which a sumo wrestler’s topknot is cut off at the time of his retirement.
毛髪（モウハツ）: n. (a) hair
理髪（リハツ）: a haircut, hairdressing (slightly more official than 散髪 above)

髪（かみ）の毛（け）: n. a hair, hair
黒髪（くろかみ）: black hair

compound reading
白髪（しらが）: n. (a) gray/white hair