Meaning & readings

welcome, meet, greet

On’yomi ゲイ
Kun’yomi むか.える
Nanori むかえ

Origin

This character combines a movement component on the left—the radical for going or motion—with a sound hint on the right that suggests the pronunciation. The left side indicates the basic idea of moving toward something, while the right component provides a phonetic clue to how the character is pronounced. Together, they create a character that means to move toward someone, capturing the sense of going out to meet or welcome a person. The visual suggests the physical action of moving forward to greet someone approaching.

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

7 strokes

Components

  • sound hint nyoc
  • radical bottom-left wrap

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

Common words

  • 歓迎 かんげい welcome; (warm) reception
  • 迎え むかえ meeting; greeting
  • 迎撃 げいげき intercept; interception
  • 迎合 げいごう ingratiation; pandering
  • 送迎 そうげい seeing off and meeting on return
  • 迎える むかえる to go out to meet; to receive
  • 迎賓館 げいひんかん reception hall (esp. for visiting state dignitaries); guest house
  • 出迎え でむかえ (going out and) receiving (someone); (heading out and) meeting

Reference

Strokes
7
Kangxi radical
162
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#625 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+08FCE