Meaning & readings
now
On’yomi コン、キン
Kun’yomi いま
Nanori な
Origin
This character most likely started as a picture of a person's mouth or the idea of speech happening in the present moment. The simple strokes form a small enclosed space, which may have originally represented sound coming out or words being spoken right now. Over time, the specific image was forgotten, but the character came to mean "now" or "the present" — the time when things are actually being said or happening. The connection makes sense because "now" is the moment of immediate, current action, much like speech that is occurring at this very instant.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (今).
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 4
- Kangxi radical
- 9
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #49 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+04ECA