Meaning & readings
increase, add, augment, gain, promote
Origin
The character combines two parts: the soil radical on the left, which hints at the idea of accumulation or building up (like piling earth), and the component on the right that serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation. Together they create an image of something growing or being added to, much like soil building up into a larger mound. Over time, this visual idea of piling up or accumulating became associated with the meaning "increase" or "add." The soil component grounds the concept in something tangible and physical before it generalized to mean any kind of growth or gain.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Common words
- 急増 きゅうぞう rapid increase; sharp rise
- 増す ます to increase; to grow
- 増員 ぞういん increasing the number of staff; hiring more people
- 増加 ぞうか increase; rise
- 増強 ぞうきょう reinforcement; augmentation
- 増減 ぞうげん increase and decrease; fluctuation
- 増刷 ぞうさつ additional printing; additional print run
- 増産 ぞうさん increase in production; production increase
Reference
- Strokes
- 14
- Kangxi radical
- 32
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #231 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05897