字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

time, hour

On’yomi ジ
Kun’yomi とき、-どき
Nanori と、とぎ

Origin

The left side shows the sun or a day, which represents time as something that passes and cycles. The right component is a sound hint that tells you roughly how to pronounce the character. Together, the character means "time" or "hour" — the period of the day, marked by the sun's movement, that you need a word to name and that sounds like the pronunciation hint suggests.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

時 10 strokes

Components

  • 日 radical left
  • 寺 sound hint right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 何時 なんじ what time; which hour
  • 今時 いまどき these days; nowadays
  • 三時 さんじ 3 o'clock
  • ４時 よじ four o'clock
  • 時雨 しぐれ rain shower in late autumn (fall) or early winter
  • 時価 じか current value; price
  • 時間 じかん time
  • 時期 じき time; season

Related kanji

Same sound component 寺
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
10
Kangxi radical
72
Grade
Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#16 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 4
Unicode
U+06642