Meaning & readings
conceal, hide, cover
Origin
This character combines the "hill" radical on the left, which suggests a physical place or location, with a sound component on the right that indicates the pronunciation. The hill radical hints at the meaning because things hidden away are often concealed in hills, caves, or remote elevated places. Over time, the character came to express the broader idea of concealing or hiding anything, not just physical objects in hills. The sound component helps readers know roughly how to pronounce the character without directly contributing to its meaning.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- ⻖
- 㥯V
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 隠す かくす to hide; to conceal
- 隠居 いんきょ retirement (from work); leading a quiet life (after retirement)
- 隠語 いんご secret language; jargon
- 隠匿 いんとく concealment (esp. of wrongdoings or criminals); sheltering
- 隠滅 いんめつ destruction (esp. of evidence); spoliation
- 隠れる かくれる to hide; to conceal oneself
- 見え隠れ みえかくれ appearing and disappearing; slipping in and out of view
- 何を隠そう なにをかくそう to be frank with you; to tell you the truth
Reference
- Strokes
- 14
- Kangxi radical
- 170
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1089 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+096A0