Meaning & readings
borough, urban prefecture, govt office, representative body, storehouse
Origin
This character combines a roof radical on the left, which suggests an enclosed building or structure, with the component 付 on the right that serves as a sound hint for pronunciation. The roof element points to the meaning of a physical place—specifically a government building, storehouse, or administrative center where officials gather. Over time, the character expanded to mean the institution itself, the government body housed there, or the administrative district it governs. The sound component 付 has no direct connection to the meanings; it simply helped speakers remember how to pronounce the character.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 广
- 付
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 政府 せいふ government; administration
- 府県 ふけん prefectures (of Japan, excl. Tokyo and Hokkaido)
- 府庁 ふちょう prefectural office (of Osaka or Kyoto)
- 幕府 ばくふ shogunate; bakufu
- 府立 ふりつ prefectural; managed by an urban prefecture (Osaka or Kyoto)
- 府警 ふけい prefectural police (Osaka or Kyoto)
- 総理府 そうりふ Prime Minister's office; PMO
- 府知事 ふちじ prefectural governor (of Osaka or Kyoto)
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 53
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #170 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05E9C