Meaning & readings
statue, picture, image, figure, portrait
Origin
The character 像 combines a person radical on the left with 象 on the right, which serves as a sound hint for pronunciation rather than contributing to the meaning. The 象 component (meaning elephant) sounds roughly like "zo" in Japanese, matching the character's reading. The left component, showing a person, grounds the character in the human realm, and together they create the idea of a human representation—a statue, portrait, or image of a person. Over time, the meaning expanded beyond just human figures to include any kind of image or visual representation.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 亻
- 象
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 映像 えいぞう image (on a screen); picture (e.g. on a TV)
- 画像 がぞう image; picture
- 胸像 きょうぞう bust (sculpture); half-length portrait
- 偶像 ぐうぞう image; idol
- 群像 ぐんぞう lively group (esp. of young people); dynamic bunch
- 現像 げんぞう development (of film); photographic processing
- 受像 じゅぞう (television) reception; receiving (a picture)
- 肖像 しょうぞう portrait; likeness
Reference
- Strokes
- 14
- Kangxi radical
- 9
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #856 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+050CF