Meaning & readings
male
On’yomi ダン、ナン
Kun’yomi おとこ、お
Nanori み
Origin
This character combines two elements to represent a male: the top component is a rice field, which represents labor and agricultural work, and the bottom is a symbol for strength or power. In ancient agricultural societies, men were typically the ones doing the heavy physical labor in the fields. By showing strength combined with field work, the character captures the idea of a man as someone who does hard labor—reflecting how masculinity was understood in early Chinese culture.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 102
- Grade
- Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #240 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+07537