Meaning & readings
ground, earth
Origin
The character 地 combines the radical for soil or earth on the left with a sound hint on the right. The left side, 土, directly represents the ground and earth, establishing the character's core meaning. The right component, 也, doesn't contribute to meaning but instead gives a pronunciation clue, helping speakers remember how to say the character. Together, they form a single character that means ground or earth.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 土
- 也
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 6
- Kangxi radical
- 32
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #40 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+05730