Meaning & readings

romance, in love, yearn for, miss, darling

On’yomi レン
Kun’yomi こ.う、こい、こい.しい

Origin

This character combines a sound hint with a meaning classifier to express the idea of romantic longing. The bottom part, heart (), is the classifying radical that points to the emotional nature of the concept — romance and yearning are matters of the heart. The top component (亦) serves as a sound hint, roughly suggesting the pronunciation rather than contributing a separate meaning. Together, the character visually represents how romantic feelings dwell in the heart, while the sound component guides how it should be read aloud.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

10 strokes

Components

  • sound hint top
  • radical bottom

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 失恋 しつれん disappointed love; broken heart
  • 初恋 はつこい first love; puppy love
  • 悲恋 ひれん blighted love; disappointed love
  • 恋愛 れんあい love; romance
  • 恋人 こいびと lover; sweetheart
  • 恋文 こいぶみ love letter
  • 恋心 こいごころ (feelings of) love
  • 恋しい こいしい yearned for; longed for

Reference

Strokes
10
Kangxi radical
61
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1296 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+0604B