Meaning & readings
work, (kokuji)
Origin
This character was created in Japan by combining the person radical 亻 on the left with 動 (meaning "move") on the right. The 動 component serves as a sound hint, telling you roughly how to pronounce the character — both share the reading ドウ. The character's meaning of "work" comes from the idea of a person in motion or action, since working involves physical or mental activity. This is a Japanese invention, not a character borrowed from Chinese, which is why it's marked as kokuji.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 亻
- 動
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
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #417 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+050CD