字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

party, faction, clique

On’yomi トウ
Kun’yomi なかま、むら

Origin

This character appears to combine a sound hint with a meaning component. The top part, 尚, gives a rough guide to pronunciation (トウ). The bottom part, 兄, originally meant "older brother" but here carries the sense of a group or collective of people bound together. By pairing these elements, the character came to represent a group of people united by common interest or loyalty—in other words, a party or faction. The meaning developed from the idea of people standing together as a unit, much like members of the same family.

党 10 strokes

Components

  • 尚 sound hint top
  • 兄 meaning part bottom

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 一党 いっとう one party; one faction
  • 挙党 きょとう whole party; party as a whole
  • 結党 けっとう formation of a (political) party
  • 新党 しんとう new (political) party
  • 政党 せいとう political party
  • 党員 とういん party member
  • 党首 とうしゅ party leader
  • 党内 とうない party-internal; within the party

Related kanji

Same sound component 尚
Same radical
Shares components

Easily confused with

These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.

Reference

Strokes
10
Kangxi radical
10
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#39 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+0515A