The kanji 痢 primarily means dysentery, diarrhea, or a similar intestinal ailment characterized by inflammation and frequent bowel movements, often with blood and mucus. It refers to a specific type of illness.

・On-yomi (音読み): リ (ri) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): None, as the meaning is very specific to the disease itself.

⚫︎赤痢 Translation: Dysentery ⚫︎疫痢 Translation: Epidemic dysentery ⚫︎下痢 Translation: Diarrhea (though more commonly written as 下痢)

The kanji 痢 is a phono-semantic compound (形声文字, keisei moji). It is formed from two parts: ⚫︎ The semantic component (meaning) is 疒 (やまいだれ, yamai-dare), the radical meaning "sickness" or "disease." This signifies that it is a disease-related kanji. ⚫︎ The phonetic component (sound) is 利 (ri), which indicates the pronunciation. The meaning of 利is "profit" or "advantage" but here, it contributes only to the sound. Thus, the character's construction indicates a "sickness" (疒) related to the sound リ (ri), which is related to the disease of dysentery.