Meaning & readings
pull, tug, jerk, admit, install, quote, refer to
On’yomi イン
Kun’yomi ひ.く、ひ.ける
Nanori いな、ひき、ひけ、びき
Origin
This character shows a bow (弓) on the left with a vertical line on the right that represents an arrow or the act of pulling. Together they depict the action of drawing a bowstring—pulling an arrow back on a bow. From this core image of pulling, the meaning expanded to include other types of pulling and tugging motions. The sense of "admit" or "quote" likely developed as metaphorical extensions: you "pull in" someone's words or ideas when you cite them, or you "pull someone in" when you admit them somewhere.
Components
- 弓
- 丨
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 4
- Kangxi radical
- 57
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #218 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+05F15