Meaning & readings
side, lean, oppose, regret
Origin
This character combines a person radical on the left with the character 則 on the right, which serves as a sound hint — it tells you roughly how to pronounce 側 as "soku," not what it means. The "person" component suggests the character relates to people or their position, and when you think of a person's "side," you get the core meaning: the area beside something or someone, the side of the body, or by extension, a flank or position. Over time, this visual idea of being beside something developed into the related meanings of leaning toward something or opposing it — ideas connected to taking a side.
Components
- 亻
- 則
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 縁側 えんがわ engawa; external corridor on the outer side of traditional Japanese houses
- 西側 にしがわ west side; west bank
- 側近 そっきん close aide (of a powerful person); close associate
- 側面 そくめん side; flank
- 内側 うちがわ inside; interior
- 片側 かたがわ one side
- 裏側 うらがわ the reverse (side); back (side)
- 右側 みぎがわ right side; right-hand side
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 9
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #216 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05074