字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

year, counter for years

On’yomi ネン
Kun’yomi とし
Nanori ね

Origin

The character 年 most likely developed from a picture of a person's head and shoulders bending under a heavy load of grain or harvest. In ancient Chinese agricultural society, a year's worth of work was measured by how much grain could be gathered, making the image of someone bearing the year's harvest a natural way to represent the concept of "year." Over time, the picture simplified into the abstract strokes we see today, but the connection between a year of labor and the character's meaning remained.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).

年 6 strokes

Components

  • 丿 radical
  • 干 radical
  • 干 radical

Common words

  • 越年 えつねん seeing the old year out; greeting the New Year
  • 往年 おうねん years gone by; earlier years
  • 何年 なんねん how many years; how long
  • 学年 がくねん academic year; school year
  • 去年 きょねん last year
  • 近年 きんねん recent years
  • 元年 がんねん first year (of an imperial era)
  • 光年 こうねん light-year

Related kanji

Same radical

Reference

Strokes
6
Kangxi radical
51
Grade
Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#6 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 4
Unicode
U+05E74