Meaning & readings
emperor
On’yomi コウ、オウ
Nanori おうじ、おお、み
Origin
The character 皇 combines two parts to represent an emperor. The bottom component 王 (king) serves as a sound hint, roughly indicating how the character is pronounced. The top component 白 (white or bright) adds meaning, suggesting the idea of brightness or clarity—qualities associated with imperial authority and divine radiance. Together, these parts created a character specifically for the highest ruler, distinguishing the emperor from ordinary kings.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 9
- Kangxi radical
- 106
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #721 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+07687