Meaning & readings
level, average
Origin
The character 均 combines the radical 土, which means earth or ground, with the component 匀 on the right that serves as a sound hint for pronunciation. The connection to "level" and "average" most likely comes from the idea of making ground or soil even and flat—spreading it out uniformly across a surface. Over time, this physical sense of leveling earth expanded to mean anything that is balanced, equal, or average. The right component doesn't contribute a separate meaning; it simply guides readers on how to pronounce the character.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 土
- 匀
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
- 32
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #715 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05747