Meaning & readings
lean, incline, tilt, trend, wane, sink, ruin, bias
On’yomi ケイ
Kun’yomi かたむ.く、かたむ.ける、かたぶ.く、かた.げる、かし.げる
Origin
The character 傾 combines a person radical on the left (亻) with the component 頃 on the right, which serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation. The 頃 component doesn't contribute meaning but suggests how to pronounce the character. A person leaning or tilting their body is the core image—when someone leans, their whole posture changes and they're no longer upright. This physical action of the body bending or shifting to one side naturally extends to the broader meanings of inclining, tilting, or gradually waning over time.
Components
- 亻
- 頃
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 13
- Kangxi radical
- 9
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #938 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+050BE