粗
あら · ara · JLPT N3 · adverb
defect
🔍 Ara! is what you gasp on spotting a flaw; 粗 = 米 rice + 且, coarse grain
粗 first meant coarse, unpolished rice, so the core idea is roughness. The rough spots in a piece of work are its flaws. The kanji also appears in 粗探し (arasagashi), which means nitpicking or hunting for someone's faults.
粗 — rice 米 + crude/rough 且
A semantic-phonetic compound. The left 米 (rice) hints at the meaning, since unhulled or coarsely milled rice is rough and grainy. The right 且 supplies the sound. From 'coarse rice' the meaning extended to 'thick, rough, crude' in general.