Meaning & readings
token, sign, mark, tally, charm
Origin
The kanji 符 combines the bamboo radical at the top with a sound hint at the bottom. Bamboo was traditionally used to make tallies and tokens—thin slips that could be marked or split to verify agreements or identify people. The bottom component 付 doesn't contribute its meaning but roughly indicates how the character is pronounced. Together, the bamboo component evokes the physical object of a bamboo tally, while the sound hint anchors the pronunciation, creating a character that represents any kind of token, sign, or identifying mark.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 118
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1798 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+07B26