Meaning & readings
market, city, town
Origin
The character 市 most likely combines a sound hint with a meaning component. The bottom part, 巾, is a phonetic indicator that suggests the pronunciation シ. The top part 亠 acts as a classifier pointing toward the meaning of a marketplace or gathering place. Over time, the character came to represent both the bustling markets where people gathered to buy and sell, and the towns and cities that grew up around them. This combination of a sound cue and a meaning indicator is typical of how many kanji were constructed.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 亠
- 巾
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 市営 しえい (under) municipal management (transport, housing, etc.); city facility management
- 市会 しかい city council
- 市外 しがい outside the city; suburbs
- 市街 しがい urban areas; the streets
- 市議 しぎ city councillor; city councilor
- 市況 しきょう market conditions
- 市場 いちば (town) market; (street) market
- 市政 しせい municipal government
Reference
- Strokes
- 5
- Kangxi radical
- 50
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #42 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+05E02