Meaning & readings
shoot, shine into, onto, archery
On’yomi シャ
Kun’yomi い.る、さ.す、う.つ
Origin
The character 射 combines two components that together express the idea of shooting or projecting outward. The left side, 身, represents the body or a person, while the right side, 寸, originally meant a small unit of distance or measurement. By putting these together, the character suggests a person extending force or motion outward over a measured distance—the core idea behind shooting an arrow or shining light onto something. This visual logic of "body plus distance" captures how archery and projection work: you direct force from your body toward a target away from you.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 10
- Kangxi radical
- 41
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #937 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+05C04