Meaning & readings
diligence, become employed, serve
On’yomi キン、ゴン
Kun’yomi つと.める、-づと.め、つと.まる、いそ.しむ
Origin
This character combines a sound hint on the left with a meaning component on the right. The left side, 菫, suggests roughly how the character is pronounced. The right side is 力, which means "power" or "strength." Together, the character depicts the idea of applying your strength and effort consistently — the essence of diligence and dedicated work. Over time, this visual combination came to represent the concepts of hard work, employment, and earnest service.
Components
- 菫
- 力
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 12
- Kangxi radical
- 19
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #830 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+052E4