Han character 岮

It describes sloping, uneven, or crumbling terrain. 岥岮 is a literary compound for an uneven, crumbling appearance.

An older related word, 陂陀, appears in Sima Xiangru’s Zixu fu, a fu (a classical Chinese poetic form) from the Han dynasty. A Western Jin citation uses 岥岮 for the worn, uneven remains of a palace. Chinese dictionaries later preserve 岮 as a variant of 陀 in this terrain sense.

How is 岮 read in Japanese and Korean?

The physical sense remains, with a different emphasis.

Chinese dictionaries center on sloping or uneven ground. Japanese dictionaries give the reading くずれるさま, meaning a state of collapse. Korean hanja dictionaries give 비탈 타: 타 is the character’s Korean reading, and 비탈 means a slope. These are recorded dictionary senses; if someone sends 岮 alone, read it as a rare written terrain term and ask for context.