Meaning & readings
scribe, account, narrative
On’yomi キ
Kun’yomi しる.す
Nanori のり
Origin
This character combines the radical for "words" or "speech" on the left with a sound hint on the right. The left side, which looks like a mouth with lines inside it, classifies this character as being about language and communication. The right component is primarily there to suggest how the character is pronounced in Chinese, not to add meaning. Together, the character came to mean recording things through writing—capturing words and speech in a permanent form, which is what scribes and record-keepers do.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 10
- Kangxi radical
- 149
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #149 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+08A18