Meaning & readings
surface, table, chart, diagram
On’yomi ヒョウ
Kun’yomi おもて、-おもて、あらわ.す、あらわ.れる、あら.わす
Origin
The character 表 appears to depict a person wearing clothes with the front visible. The top part suggests a head or upper body, while the lower strokes represent garments. Since the front of clothing is what faces outward and can be seen, the character came to mean "surface" or "what shows on top." From this basic meaning, it extended to refer to any visible outer layer, and later to tables, charts, and diagrams—things that display information on their surface for others to view.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (表).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 145
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #77 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+08868