Meaning & readings
know, wisdom
On’yomi チ
Kun’yomi し.る、し.らせる
Nanori さと、さとる、しり、しれ、とも、のり
Origin
This character combines an arrow (矢) on the left with a mouth or speech (口) on the right. The arrow suggests speed and directness, while the mouth represents communication or speaking. Together, these parts convey the idea of quickly grasping information and being able to express it — in other words, knowledge and understanding. Over time, the character came to mean "to know" or "wisdom" more broadly, capturing both the act of learning and the state of being informed.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 111
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #205 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+077E5