滞在
たいざい · taizai · JLPT N3 · noun
stay
🏨🧳 滞 linger + 在 be present = a stay, staying put for a while
滞 means to stagnate or hold up, as in 渋滞 (traffic jam). 在 means to be somewhere, as in 現在 (present). Hold up + be there = a stay. Sound hook: tai-zai, tied to a place for a while. Used for trips: 東京に三日間滞在する.
在 — earth 土 + phonetic 才
Originally a phono-semantic compound: 土 (earth) gives the meaning of a place or location, while 才 supplies the sound. It came to mean 'to be present/located at,' and now also serves as a grammatical marker for ongoing actions, like 'in the middle of doing.'