Meaning & readings
sort, kind, variety, class, genus
Origin
This character combines two visual ideas to express the concept of "sort" or "kind." The top part, 目, represents an eye or looking, suggesting the act of observing and distinguishing things. The bottom part, 八, originally pictured two things spreading apart or dividing. Together, these components suggest the process of looking at things and sorting them into different groups or categories based on what you see. Over time, this developed into the meaning of "sort," "kind," or "class"—a way of organizing similar things together.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 18
- Kangxi radical
- 181
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #678 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+0985E