Meaning & readings
newborn babe, child, young of animals
On’yomi ジ、ニ、ゲイ
Kun’yomi こ、-こ、-っこ
Nanori る
Origin
The character 児 combines two elements to represent a child. The bottom component 儿, which looks like legs, is a classifier used in Chinese characters for anything related to people or human forms. The top part suggests a small or young person. Together, these elements visually and conceptually build the idea of a young human—someone small and developing, with the leg component emphasizing the physical form of a child. This compound-ideographic approach lets the character's shape itself convey the meaning of youth and immaturity.
Components
- 旧
- 儿
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 10
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #679 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05150