also: いせき
They built a weir across the river to secure irrigation water.
Open the sluice and let the water flow.
The villagers built a weir in the river to draw water into the rice fields.
堤防 is an embankment or levee built along a river to prevent flooding, while 堰 crosses the river to control or divert the flow itself.
関 (せき) shares the same reading with 堰 but means a checkpoint or barrier for people or traffic, not a structure for controlling water.
咳 (せき) is pronounced identically to 堰 but means 'cough' and has nothing to do with water control.
堰 is a weir or small dam built to block or control the flow of water, whereas 堤 is an embankment built alongside water to hold it back.
堤防 is a levee built to keep water out during floods, while 堰 is a weir or small dam built across a river to control or divert the water's flow.
堰 is typically counted with 基, the counter used for installed structures such as weirs, monuments, or towers.
Standard kanji spelling; the most common form in modern Japanese.
Rare kanji form; the reading いせき is uncommon and may be encountered in historical or technical contexts.
The kanji 堰 is a phono-semantic compound: 土 (earth) + 匽 (phonetic, also meaning 'to block'). The reading せき is the native Japanese kun'yomi.
They regulate the water volume with a weir to prevent flooding downstream.
The heavy rain caused the weir to burst, flooding the surrounding fields.