Meaning & readings
gather, meet, congregate, swarm, flock
On’yomi シュウ
Kun’yomi あつ.まる、あつ.める、つど.う
Nanori あつまり、ず
Origin
This character combines two images to show the idea of gathering. The top part, 隹, depicts a bird, and the bottom part, 木, is a tree. When many birds come together on a tree, they naturally gather in one place—so the character came to mean "gather" or "congregate" more broadly. The picture of birds flocking to a tree is a straightforward visual way to express the concept of things or people coming together in one spot.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Components
- 隹
- 木
Common words
- 歌集 かしゅう collection of waka poems; anthology
- 句集 くしゅう collection of haiku poems
- 結集 けっしゅう concentration (of efforts, forces, etc.); gathering together
- 採集 さいしゅう collecting; gathering
- 詩集 ししゅう poetry anthology; collection of poems
- 集い つどい meeting; get-together (e.g. among friends)
- 集う つどう to meet; to assemble
- 集る たかる to gather; to crowd round
Reference
- Strokes
- 12
- Kangxi radical
- 172
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #210 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+096C6