Meaning & readings
expert, teacher, master, model, exemplar, army (incl. counter), war
Origin
The character 師 most likely combines the idea of a multitude with the concept of leadership or mastery. The left side suggests many people gathered together, while the right component relates to someone who stands out or leads. This visual combination captures both the "army" sense (a large organized group) and the "teacher or master" sense (someone who leads and instructs that group). Over time, the emphasis shifted more toward the meaning of an expert or skilled person who guides others, which is why today it primarily means teacher or master rather than army.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (師).
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 10
- Kangxi radical
- 50
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #563 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05E2B