Meaning & readings
horse
On’yomi バ、メ、マ、ボ、モ
Kun’yomi うま、ま
Nanori た、ばん
Origin
This character is a simplified picture of a horse. The strokes represent the animal's head, body, and four legs, much like a stick-figure drawing. Over centuries of writing, the original detailed horse shape became more angular and abstract, but the basic outline still suggests a four-legged creature standing in profile. Because horses were important animals in East Asian societies, the character developed into one of the most commonly used animal names in written language.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (馬).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 10
- Kangxi radical
- 187
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #639 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+099AC