Meaning & readings
humanity, virtue, benevolence, charity, man, kernel
On’yomi ジン、ニ、ニン
Nanori きみ、く、さと、しのぶ、じ、と、のり、ひと、ひとし、ひろ、まさ、まさし、やす、よし
Origin
The character 仁 combines a person marker on the left with the sound component 二 on the right. The person marker signals that this character relates to human qualities or virtues. The 二 component provides a phonetic hint for how the character is pronounced, rather than adding meaning of its own. Over time, 仁 became the symbol for one of the highest virtues in Chinese and Japanese thought: the compassion and benevolence that characterizes a truly humane person.
Components
- 亻
- 二
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 4
- Kangxi radical
- 9
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1332 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+04EC1