Meaning & readings
ten
On’yomi ジュウ、ジッ、ジュッ
Kun’yomi とお、と、そ
Nanori い、か、ぎ、さ、し、そう、ち、とう、ね、ま、る、わ
Origin
The character 十 is a simple picture of a cross or plus sign, which evolved from ancient tally marks used for counting. In early Chinese writing systems, people would use crossed lines to represent the number ten, since ten was a fundamental counting unit. Over time, this visual symbol became standardized into the two perpendicular strokes you see today. The shape is so basic and iconic that it has remained nearly unchanged for thousands of years, making it one of the most straightforward kanji to understand.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (十).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 2
- Kangxi radical
- 24
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #8 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+05341