Meaning & readings
in, inside, middle, mean, center
On’yomi チュウ
Kun’yomi なか、うち、あた.る
Nanori あたる、かなえ
Origin
The kanji 中 shows a vertical line passing through the middle of a box or square. This represents the idea of something positioned in the center or middle of a space. The box suggests a contained area, and the line running through its middle visually demonstrates the concept of being "in" or "inside" that space, right at the core. Over time, this simple picture came to mean not just physical middle positions, but also abstract notions of "center" and "inside."
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Components
- 口
- 丨
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 4
- Kangxi radical
- 2
- Grade
- Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #11 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+04E2D