Meaning & readings
surround, besiege, store, paling, enclosure, encircle, preserve, keep
On’yomi イ
Kun’yomi かこ.む、かこ.う、かこ.い
Origin
This character combines the idea of enclosure with a pronunciation hint. The outer frame made of the box radical 囗 represents a boundary or enclosed space—the very idea of surrounding something. Inside, the component 井 serves as a sound hint, roughly indicating how the character should be pronounced, without contributing to the meaning itself. Together, the box-like structure visually captures the concept of something being enclosed or circled in, which matches the character's meanings of surrounding, besieging, or creating an enclosure.
Components
- 囗
- 井
- 囗
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 31
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #771 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+056F2