Meaning & readings
seasons
On’yomi キ
Nanori すえ、とし
Origin
The character combines two ideas about crops and time. The top part, a picture of grain or rice plants, represents the harvest and agricultural cycle. The bottom part means child or small thing, and here suggests the youngest or final part of something. Together, they capture the idea of a season as a natural division of the year marked by what grows and ripens, making each season feel like a distinct period in nature's progression.
Components
- 禾
- 子
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 39
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #842 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05B63