Meaning & readings
stream, river, river or three-stroke river radical (no. 47)
On’yomi セン
Kun’yomi かわ
Nanori か、こ、さわ
Origin
This character is a simple picture of a river or stream. The three vertical lines represent water flowing downward, with the two outer lines suggesting the banks on either side and the middle line showing the current of water flowing between them. The shape is so straightforward that it became the standard way to write this character and also serves as a classifier—a marker used in other characters to show they relate to water or rivers.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (川).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 3
- Kangxi radical
- 47
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #181 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+05DDD