The kanji 軟 primarily conveys the meaning of "soft," "tender," "yielding," or "flexible." It describes something that is easily bent, compressed, or changed in shape. This can apply to physical properties like the texture of food or the pliability of materials, as well as more abstract concepts like a person's gentle personality or a flexible approach to a problem.

・On-yomi (音読み): ナン (nan) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): やわ(らか)い (yawa(raka)i)

⚫︎ 柔軟 (じゅうなん) Translation: Flexibility; suppleness; pliability. ⚫︎ 軟らかいパン (やわらかいパン) Translation: Soft bread. ⚫︎ 軟水 (なんすい) Translation: Soft water.

The kanji 軟 is a 形声文字 (keisei moji), a phono-semantic compound character. The left side is the radical 車 (kuruma, meaning "vehicle" or "wheel"), which provides the semantic component, suggesting something related to movement or change, and the right side is 欠 (ketsu, meaning "lack" or "deficiency"), which provides the phonetic component, indicating the pronunciation. The character therefore combined the meaning of softness/yielding and the sound of the character.