Meaning & readings
reside, to be, exist, live with
Origin
The character 居 combines a shape showing a person in a seated or resting position with a sound hint. The left component 尸 originally depicted a person sitting or crouching, which directly connects to the meaning of staying in one place or residing. The right component 古 serves as a sound hint, suggesting roughly how the character should be pronounced, rather than adding meaning to the word. Together, the visual picture of a person at rest merged with the pronunciation guide created a character meaning to be, to exist, or to live in a place.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 尸
- 古
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 隠居 いんきょ retirement (from work); leading a quiet life (after retirement)
- 居間 いま living room (Western style); sitting room
- 居候 いそうろう lodger who pays nothing for room and board; freeloader
- 居住 きょじゅう residence; living (at, in)
- 皇居 こうきょ Imperial Palace (of Japan); imperial residence
- 雑居 ざっきょ living together; mixed residence
- 芝居 しばい play; drama
- 新居 しんきょ new home
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 44
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #836 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05C45