Meaning & readings

figure, form, shape

On’yomi シ
Kun’yomi すがた
Nanori しな

Origin

The character 姿 combines the radical for "woman" at the bottom with a sound hint component at the top that helps indicate how to pronounce it. The character specifically means the figure or form of a person, particularly a woman's appearance or bearing. Over time, the meaning broadened to refer to any person's shape, posture, or outward form. The sound component doesn't contribute to the meaning but rather signals the approximate pronunciation used in Chinese, which Japanese adopted.

姿 9 strokes

Components

  • 次 sound hint top
  • 女 radical bottom

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 姿勢 しせい posture; pose
  • 容姿 ようし (physical) appearance (of a person); one's face and figure
  • 後ろ姿 うしろすがた (a person's) appearance from behind; person as seen from behind

Reference

Strokes
9
Kangxi radical
38
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#441 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+059FF