Meaning & readings
orphan, alone
On’yomi コ
Origin
This character combines the idea of a child (子) with a sound hint on the right (瓜, which suggests the pronunciation). The character's core meaning comes from pairing a child component with the concept of being without parents or family. The sound component helps speakers remember how to pronounce the word, though it doesn't contribute to the meaning itself. Over time, the character came to mean not just a parentless child, but more broadly anyone who is alone or isolated.
Components
- 子
- 瓜
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 9
- Kangxi radical
- 39
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1239 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+05B64