Meaning & readings
treasure, wealth, valuables
On’yomi ホウ
Kun’yomi たから
Nanori ほ
Origin
The character combines a roof or house symbol on top with jade below it. In ancient times, jade was one of the most precious and valuable materials, so by showing jade stored safely under a roof, the character pictures something precious being kept and protected. This visual idea of a valued object kept secure in a home came to mean treasure or wealth more broadly.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Components
- 宀
- 玉
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 40
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1139 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05B9D