Meaning & readings
someone, person
On’yomi シャ
Kun’yomi もの
Origin
This character combines two parts to represent a person. The component on the left (耂) depicts an old or wise person, while the square on the right (日) originally represented a mouth or speech. Together they suggest someone who speaks or acts — a person defined by their words and deeds. Over time, the character became a general marker for "person" or "someone," similar to how English uses "-er" to turn verbs into nouns for people who do things.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Components
- 耂
- 日
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 125
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #38 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+08005