Meaning & readings

gold

On’yomi キン、コン、ゴン
Kun’yomi かね、かな-、-がね
Nanori かん、きむ、こ、この、ん

Origin

This character is a picture of gold nuggets or precious metal. The shape shows a container or repository at the bottom with valuable material collected inside, representing the precious metal gold itself. Over time, the character came to mean not just the metal but also money and valuables in general, since gold was historically used as currency and a store of wealth.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.

8 strokes

Components

This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (金).

Common words

  • お金 おかね money
  • 黄金 おうごん gold (Au)
  • 換金 かんきん realization (of goods into money); conversion (into money)
  • 基金 ききん fund; foundation
  • 寄金 ききん contribution; donation
  • 金貨 きんか gold coin
  • 金塊 きんかい gold nugget; gold bullion
  • 金額 きんがく amount of money; sum

Reference

Strokes
8
Kangxi radical
167
Grade
Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#53 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 4
Unicode
U+091D1