Meaning & readings

value, price

On’yomi カ、ケ
Kun’yomi あたい

Origin

The character combines a person radical on the left, which suggests this word relates to human activity or social matters, with a sound component on the right that helps indicate how to pronounce it. The person element fits well with "value" or "price," since these are concepts that people determine and exchange in society. Over time, the character's shape became standardized to represent the abstract idea of worth or monetary value, even though the original pictographic elements are no longer visually obvious.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

8 strokes

Components

  • radical left
  • sound hint right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 安価 あんか low-priced; cheap
  • 価格 かかく price; value
  • 価値 かち value; worth
  • 株価 かぶか stock prices
  • 高価 こうか highly priced; expensive
  • 時価 じか current value; price
  • 真価 しんか true value; real worth
  • 単価 たんか unit price; unit cost

Reference

Strokes
8
Kangxi radical
9
Grade
Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#250 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+04FA1