Meaning & readings
daytime, noon
On’yomi チュウ
Kun’yomi ひる
Origin
The character combines two components: 旦, which depicts the sun rising over the horizon (representing dawn or daybreak), and 尺, a measure of length. Together they suggest the period when the sun is visibly high and measurable in the sky—in other words, the daytime hours when you can see clearly and go about your activities. The combination effectively captures the idea of the full daylit period, from morning through noon, as opposed to night. Over time, this became the standard character for "daytime" or "noon" in Japanese.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 9
- Kangxi radical
- 72
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1115 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+0663C