Meaning & readings
stratum, social class, layer, story, floor
Origin
The character 層 combines two parts to show the idea of layers stacked on top of each other. The left component 尸 is a classifying marker that suggests something structural or built. The right component 曽 serves as a sound hint, telling you roughly how to pronounce the character. Together, these parts suggest horizontal divisions or strata — think of how floors in a building stack upward, or how social classes arrange themselves in layers. This visual idea of stacked, separated sections is why 層 came to mean layer, stratum, floor, or social tier.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 尸
- 曽
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 14
- Kangxi radical
- 44
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #801 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05C64