Meaning & readings
suspicious, mystery, apparition
On’yomi カイ、ケ
Kun’yomi あや.しい、あや.しむ
Origin
The left part, the heart radical, shows this character deals with feelings and emotions. The right part is a sound hint that tells you roughly how to say the character. Together, they make a character meaning something that provokes emotional reactions—specifically unease, doubt, or suspicion. When you encounter something mysterious or apparition-like, your heart naturally fills with wariness and suspicion. The combination of the emotional component with a phonetic guide created this character to express that uncertain, unsettled feeling.
Components
- 忄
- 圣
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 61
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1634 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+0602A