Meaning & readings
heart, mind, spirit, heart radical (no. 61)
Origin
The character 心 is a simple picture of a human heart. The four strokes form a shape resembling the organ itself — the pointed bottom and the curved top with small indentations suggest the anatomical form. Because the heart was traditionally considered the center of emotions and thinking in East Asian philosophy, this physical picture came to represent not just the organ but also the mind, spirit, and emotions. That's why the character carries meanings like "heart," "mind," and "spirit" all at once.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (心).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 4
- Kangxi radical
- 61
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #157 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+05FC3