Meaning & readings
income, obtain, reap, pay, supply, store
On’yomi シュウ
Kun’yomi おさ.める、おさ.まる
Nanori のぶ
Origin
This character appears to be a simplified picture of a hand (the strokes on the left) grasping or gathering something (the element on the right). The idea of a hand taking hold of things naturally connects to meanings like "obtain," "gather," or "reap" — when you harvest crops or collect goods, you're using your hands to bring things together. Over time, this visual image expanded to include related concepts like "income" (what you gather in) and "store" (gathering things to keep). The character's simple four-stroke form makes it easy to write while still preserving the core idea of grasping or collecting.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (収).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 4
- Kangxi radical
- 29
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #337 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+053CE