Meaning & readings

with child, pregnancy

On’yomi シン

Origin

The character 娠 combines the radical 女 meaning "woman" or "female" on the left side with the component 辰 on the right, which serves as a sound hint suggesting the "shin" pronunciation. The 女 radical makes sense as the primary meaning-carrier since pregnancy is a condition specific to women. Together, the character literally depicts a woman in a particular state, with the sound component helping speakers remember how to pronounce it. This is a common pattern in kanji where a meaningful radical pairs with a sound hint to create a character for a more specific or abstract concept.

娠 10 strokes

Components

  • 女 radical left
  • 辰 sound hint right

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

Common words

  • 妊娠 にんしん pregnancy; conception

Easily confused with

These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.

Reference

Strokes
10
Kangxi radical
38
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1623 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+05A20