字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

overpowering, great, powerful, excelling, Australia

On’yomi ゴウ
Kun’yomi えら.い
Nanori こう、ご、すぐる、たけ、たけし、ひで、まさる

Origin

The character 豪 combines a pig (豕, the bottom component) with a sound hint (高V, at the top). The pig part originally referred to a wild boar, which was valued in ancient times as a symbol of strength and ferocity because of its powerful tusks and aggressive nature. Over time, the meaning shifted from the animal itself to the qualities it embodied — power, greatness, and excellence. The top component signals roughly how the character should be pronounced, while the pig component carries the core meaning of overwhelming force and superiority.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

豪 14 strokes

Components

  • 高V sound hint top
  • 豕 radical bottom

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 豪雨 ごうう torrential rain; heavy rain
  • 豪華 ごうか extravagant; lavish
  • 豪快 ごうかい hearty; tremendous
  • 豪傑 ごうけつ hero; bold person
  • 豪族 ごうぞく powerful family; powerful clan
  • 富豪 ふごう wealthy person; millionaire
  • 強豪 きょうごう overwhelming strength; extremely strong person
  • 集中豪雨 しゅうちゅうごうう local downpour; severe rain fall

Related kanji

Same radical

Reference

Strokes
14
Kangxi radical
152
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1104 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+08C6A