Meaning & readings
expand, stretch, extend, lengthen, increase
On’yomi シン
Kun’yomi の.びる、の.ばす、の.べる、の.す
Nanori のぶ、よぼる
Origin
The character combines the "person" radical on the left, which indicates this describes what a person does with their body, with the component 申 on the right that serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation シン. The right component doesn't contribute to the meaning itself, but rather tells you roughly how to say the character. When you think of a person stretching or extending their limbs or body, you get the meaning of expansion and lengthening that this character carries.
Components
- 亻
- 申
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 9
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #730 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+04F38