Meaning & readings
committee, entrust to, leave to, devote, discard
On’yomi イ
Kun’yomi ゆだ.ねる
Nanori まかせ
Origin
This character combines a picture of grain or crops (the top part) with a picture of a woman (the bottom part). In old agricultural societies, women were often entrusted with managing the household's stored grain and harvest—work that required care and responsibility. Over time, the character came to mean "to entrust" or "to leave something in someone's care," since the image captured the idea of placing important duties onto someone reliable. The sense of "committee" developed later, as a committee is a group entrusted with a specific task or decision.
Components
- 禾
- 女
Common words
- 委員 いいん committee member
- 委託 いたく entrusting (something to a person); consignment (of goods)
- 委任 いにん entrusting; charge
- 委嘱 いしょく commissioning; entrusting (with)
- 委ねる ゆだねる to entrust (a matter) to; to leave to
- 委員会 いいんかい committee; commission
- 委員長 いいんちょう chairperson (of a committee); chair
- 執行委員 しっこういいん executive committee
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 38
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #187 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+059D4