Meaning & readings
boulder, rock, cliff
On’yomi ガン
Kun’yomi いわ
Origin
This character combines two components that both relate to rocky, solid things. The top part, 山, means mountain. The bottom part, 石, means stone. Together they create the idea of a stone or rock on a mountain—specifically the larger, more imposing kind we call a boulder or cliff. The combination of "mountain" plus "stone" naturally points to the kind of massive rock formation you'd find in rocky terrain.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 46
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #787 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05CA9