Meaning & readings
accompany, obey, submit to, comply, follow, secondary, incidental, subordinate
Origin
This character combines a walking or movement radical on the left side with a sound hint on the right that suggests its pronunciation. The walking radical 彳 appears in many characters related to motion and paths, and here it establishes the basic sense of moving or going somewhere. The right component serves mainly to indicate how the character should be pronounced in Chinese, not to add meaning. Together, the shape evolved to represent the idea of following someone's path or walking behind them—to accompany or obey by moving in the direction someone else goes.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 彳
- 八+疋
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 侍従 じじゅう chamberlain
- 従う したがう to obey (an order, law, etc.); to abide by (a rule, custom, etc.)
- 従軍 じゅうぐん military service; serving in a war
- 従事 じゅうじ engaging in (work); pursuing (e.g. studies)
- 従属 じゅうぞく subordination; dependency
- 従来 じゅうらい up to now; so far
- 服従 ふくじゅう obedience; submission
- 専従 せんじゅう working exclusively for; working full-time (for)
Reference
- Strokes
- 10
- Kangxi radical
- 60
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #601 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+05F93