Meaning & readings
north
On’yomi ホク
Kun’yomi きた
Nanori きら、ほう、ほっ、ほつ
Origin
The character 北 most likely depicts two people standing back-to-back, with the two strokes on top representing their heads or upper bodies and the two strokes below showing their legs or lower bodies. In ancient China, "back-to-back" came to symbolize the idea of turning away or moving apart, which led to the meaning of north — the direction opposite to south, where the Chinese considered the front to face. Over time, the picture simplified into the abstract shape we see today, but it retained the meaning of north.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (北).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 5
- Kangxi radical
- 21
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #153 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+05317