Meaning & readings
loom, mechanism, machine, airplane, opportunity, potency, efficacy, occasion
Origin
The character 機 combines the wood radical on the left, which signals something made of wood, with the sound component 幾 on the right, which hints at the pronunciation. In ancient China, the character originally depicted a wooden loom or weaving device—a machine made of wood. Over time, the meaning expanded from the specific object of a loom to machines and mechanical devices in general, and eventually to abstract concepts like opportunity or potential, since both represent something waiting to be triggered or set in motion.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 16
- Kangxi radical
- 75
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #127 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+06A5F