Meaning & readings
large, big
On’yomi ダイ、タイ
Kun’yomi おお-、おお.きい、-おお.いに
Nanori うふ、お、おう、た、たかし、とも、はじめ、ひろ、ひろし、まさ、まさる、もと、わ
Origin
This character is a simple picture of a person with arms and legs spread wide apart. The vertical line is the body, and the two diagonal lines spreading outward represent outstretched arms and legs. By showing a figure taking up more space, the character came to represent the idea of something being large or big. It's one of the oldest and most basic kanji, originally drawn to look much more like an actual person, though it has been simplified over time to these three simple strokes.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (大).
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 3
- Kangxi radical
- 37
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #7 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+05927