Meaning & readings
grove, forest
On’yomi リン
Kun’yomi はやし
Nanori し
Origin
This character shows two tree symbols standing side by side. In Chinese and Japanese, when you put multiple copies of the same picture together, you create a new meaning: one tree is just a tree, but two trees together make a grove or small forest. The name "hayashi" in Japanese actually means grove or thicket, and the character's shape directly captures that idea of trees clustered together. This pattern of doubling or tripling appears elsewhere in East Asian characters as a way to show quantity or density.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 75
- Grade
- Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #656 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+06797