Meaning & readings
strange, strangeness, curiosity
On’yomi キ
Kun’yomi く.しき、あや.しい、くし、めずら.しい
Origin
The character combines "big" on top with a sound hint below. The "big" part suggests something exceptional or unusual, since what stands out tends to be notably large or prominent. The bottom component provides a sound clue for pronunciation rather than meaning. Over time, this combination came to express the idea of strangeness or oddness — things that are remarkable precisely because they depart from the ordinary and catch our attention.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 37
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1367 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+05947