Meaning & readings

recommend, mat, advise, encourage, offer

On’yomi セン
Kun’yomi すす.める
Nanori こも

Origin

This character combines grass (the left side, showing the plant radical) with a component that sounds like "sen" — the sound hint for how the character is pronounced. The connection to meaning likely comes from traditional woven grass mats in Japan, which were (and are) made from plant materials and offered as gifts or used in formal settings. Over time, the character extended from the concrete meaning of offering a mat to the more general sense of recommending or encouraging someone to accept something, similar to formally presenting or offering something valuable.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.

16 strokes

Components

This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (薦).

  • meaning part

Common words

  • 自薦 じせん self-recommendation; self-nomination
  • 推薦 すいせん recommendation; referral
  • 他薦 たせん recommendation (by others)

Reference

Strokes
16
Kangxi radical
140
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1082 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+085A6