Meaning & readings
even, flat, peace
On’yomi ヘイ、ビョウ、ヒョウ
Kun’yomi たい.ら、たい.らげる、ひら
Nanori たいら、たら、はち、ひ、ひとし、へ、へん
Origin
This character most likely shows two horizontal lines stacked together, representing the idea of something level and balanced. The repetition or stacking emphasizes evenness and smoothness, which is why the character came to mean "flat" or "even." From this visual sense of levelness, the meaning extended to "peace" — a state where things are balanced and nothing is in turmoil. The simple, symmetrical strokes themselves mirror the peaceful, orderly concept the character expresses.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 5
- Kangxi radical
- 51
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #128 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05E73