Meaning & readings
idea, mind, heart, taste, thought, desire, care, liking
On’yomi イ
Nanori もと、よし
Origin
This character combines sound (音, at the top) with heart (心, at the bottom). In Chinese character formation, sound can represent thought or speech arising in the mind, while heart is the seat of feeling and intention. Together, these elements picture the idea of meaning or intention—the sound that carries what the heart intends to express. Over time, the character came to mean not just utterances but the broader concepts of idea, thought, and desire that motivate what we say and do.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 13
- Kangxi radical
- 61
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #99 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+0610F