字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

week

On’yomi シュウ

Origin

The character 週 combines two parts to represent "week." The left side is the radical for "walk" or "go around," which suggests the cyclical nature of time passing and repeating. The right component 周 serves as a sound hint, telling you roughly how to pronounce the character (as シュウ), rather than contributing to the meaning itself. Together, the idea of something that cycles and repeats—like days going around and around—pairs with this sound element to create a character meaning a seven-day period that recurs week after week.

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

週 11 strokes

Components

  • 周 sound hint nyoc
  • ⻌ 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

  • 今週 こんしゅう this week
  • 週刊 しゅうかん weekly publication
  • 週間 しゅうかん week
  • 週末 しゅうまつ weekend
  • 先週 せんしゅう last week; the week before
  • 前週 ぜんしゅう last week; the week before
  • 毎週 まいしゅう every week
  • 翌週 よくしゅう the following week; the next week

Related kanji

Same sound component 周
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
11
Kangxi radical
162
Grade
Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#540 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 4
Unicode
U+09031