Meaning & readings
capital, 10**16
Origin
This character is a picture of a tall structure or building, most likely a watchtower or palace building seen from the front. The shape shows a tower or multi-story structure rising up, which made sense as a way to represent an important, elevated place. Because capitals and major cities were built around important palaces and government buildings that stood out above everything else, the character came to mean "capital" or "metropolis." The sense of "10 to the 16th power" is a modern mathematical extension based on the original meaning of something large and prominent.
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 (京).
Common words
- 帰京 ききょう returning (home) to Tokyo; returning to the capital
- 京阪 けいはん Kyoto and Osaka; Kyoto-Osaka area
- 上京 じょうきょう going (up) to the capital; going to Tokyo
- 中京 ちゅうきょう Nagoya (city)
- 東京 とうきょう Tokyo
- 北京 ペキン Beijing (China); Peking
- 京都 きょうと Kyoto (city, prefecture)
- 在京 ざいきょう being in the capital (i.e. Tokyo, or formerly Kyoto)
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 8
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #74 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+04EAC