Meaning & readings
husband, man
On’yomi フ、フウ、ブ
Kun’yomi おっと、それ
Nanori お、と、ゆう、よ
Origin
This character most likely depicts a man or adult male through a simple picture. The basic strokes form a human figure, with the horizontal line at the top representing the head or upper body and the vertical elements below suggesting the torso and stance. Over time, this straightforward pictorial representation became the standard way to write the word for "husband" or "man" in Japanese and Chinese. The character's simplicity and direct visual origin helped it remain recognizable even as writing systems evolved.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (夫).
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 4
- Kangxi radical
- 37
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #335 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+0592B