Meaning & readings
submit, offer, present, serve (meal), accompany
On’yomi キョウ、ク、クウ、グ
Kun’yomi そな.える、とも、-ども
Origin
This character combines a person marker on the left with the component 共 on the right, which serves as a sound hint for pronunciation. The 共 component originally depicts two people together, suggesting the idea of togetherness or cooperation. When paired with the person marker, the character came to mean actions a person performs together with or for others—such as offering something, serving food, or accompanying someone. The sound hint 共 (pronounced きょう) guides how the combined character is read.
Components
- 亻
- 共
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 供給 きょうきゅう supply; provision
- 供出 きょうしゅつ obligatory supply (of goods to the government, e.g. during wartime); delivery (to the government at a fixed price, e.g. of rice)
- 供述 きょうじゅつ affidavit; deposition
- 供物 くもつ offering (e.g. to the gods); votive offering
- 供与 きょうよ giving; provision
- 供養 くよう memorial service for the dead; holding a service
- 子供 こども child; children
- 自供 じきょう confession
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 9
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #313 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+04F9B