字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

lamp, a light, light, counter for lights

On’yomi トウ
Kun’yomi ひ、ほ-、ともしび、とも.す、あかり

Origin

This character combines fire (the left component showing flames) with a sound hint on the right that suggests the pronunciation. Since a lamp produces light through fire or flame, the fire radical naturally represents the meaning. The right component is just there to indicate roughly how the character should be pronounced in Chinese, which Japanese adopted. Over time, this character came to mean not just fire-based lamps, but any kind of light source or lighting device.

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

灯 6 strokes

Components

  • 火 radical left
  • 丁 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

  • 街灯 がいとう street light; streetlamp
  • 電灯 でんとう electric light
  • 灯台 とうだい lighthouse
  • 灯油 とうゆ kerosene; paraffin
  • 灯す ともす to light (a candle, lamp, etc.); to turn on (a light)
  • 消灯 しょうとう putting out the lights; turning off the lights
  • 灯火 とうか light; lamplight
  • 蛍光灯 けいこうとう fluorescent lamp; fluorescent light

Related kanji

Same sound component 丁
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
6
Kangxi radical
86
Grade
Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#1605 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+0706F