Meaning & readings
ease, peace
Origin
This character combines a shelter or roof shape on the left with a component on the right that hints at its pronunciation. The roof element suggests something protective or structural, which connects to ideas of safety and security. The right component sounds similar to how the character is pronounced in Chinese (コウ), serving as a sound guide rather than adding to the meaning. Together, the sheltering roof and the sound hint create a character that represents the comfort and peace found under a safe roof — the ease and contentment of being protected.
Components
- 广
- 隶
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 53
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #760 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05EB7