Meaning & readings

many, frequent, much

On’yomi
Kun’yomi おお.い、まさ.に、まさ.る

Origin

This character shows the same component twice — the symbol for "evening" or "dusk" stacked on top of itself. By doubling the image, the character expresses the idea of abundance or multiplicity: just as dusk arrives repeatedly each day, this doubled form suggests things happening many times or existing in large quantity. The more of something you show, the more you have, so repeating the visual element creates the sense of "many" or "much."

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).

6 strokes

Components

  • radical top
  • meaning part bottom

Common words

  • 過多 かた excess; surplus
  • 多い おおい many; numerous
  • 多寡 たか degree (of something); greatness or smallness (of something)
  • 多額 たがく large (amount of money); huge
  • 多岐 たき diverse; various
  • 多彩 たさい colourful; colorful
  • 多才 たさい talented
  • 多湿 たしつ high humidity

Reference

Strokes
6
Kangxi radical
36
Grade
Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#139 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 4
Unicode
U+0591A