First opened Saturday, December 17, 2011
放射能
ほうしゃのう
Pitch accent: We don't have the data for this section. No accent list gives this spelling and reading, or the two we check against disagree.
radioactivity
Hōshanō is 放射 (hōsha, “radiating, emitting”) plus 能 (nō, “ability, capacity”).
Taken apart
Select a part to see every word so far that is taken apart with it.
In a sentence
今回の雨には放射能はない。
The rain is radiologically inactive this time.
放射能が原子力発電所から漏れた。
The radioactivity leaked out of the nuclear power plant.
Sentences are from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR), picked by fixed rules from a dated export and shown unchanged. Nobody has reviewed them one by one.
What Wiktionary says
Quoted line by line from Wiktionary's Etymology section for this reading, taken from one dated dump so it can't change underneath us. Nothing below is paraphrased.
- “放射(ほうしゃ) (hōsha, “radiating, emitting”) + 能(のう) (nō, “ability, capacity”)”
Source: Wiktionary: 放射能 (dump of 2026-09-02), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Reading, meaning and part of speech from JMdict, and kanji readings from KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG).
What the labels mean
- 漢語 Sino-Japanese
- Words built from Chinese-derived morphemes — borrowed from Chinese or coined in Japan out of Chinese parts — read with on'yomi.
- Compound
- Two or more words or stems joined into one.