Meaning & readings
friend
On’yomi ユウ
Kun’yomi とも
Nanori う、ど、ゆ
Origin
This character appears to combine two hands, shown as simple strokes, to represent the idea of togetherness and mutual support. The concept of friendship naturally arose from the image of two people or hands joined together, suggesting companionship and cooperation. Over time, these hand-like components became stylized into the four simple strokes we see today, but the core meaning of connection between two individuals remained. The character thus evolved from a picture of mutual action into the abstract concept of friend.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Components
- 𠂇
- 又
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 4
- Kangxi radical
- 29
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #622 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+053CB