Meaning & readings

casting, mint

On’yomi チュウ、イ、シュ、シュウ
Kun’yomi い.る

Origin

This character combines the metal radical on the left, which identifies the character as relating to metalwork, with 寿 on the right as a sound hint suggesting the pronunciation. The metal component makes sense because casting is the process of melting metal and pouring it into molds to form objects—a core metalworking technique. By pairing the metal radical with a phonetic component, the character efficiently conveys both what the word is about and roughly how it should sound.

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

15 strokes

Components

  • radical left
  • 寿 sound hint right

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

Common words

  • 鋳型 いがた mold; mould
  • 鋳造 ちゅうぞう casting; founding
  • 鋳物 いもの casting; cast-metal object
  • 鋳る いる to cast; to mint

Reference

Strokes
15
Kangxi radical
167
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#2005 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+092F3