Meaning & readings

door, counter for houses, door radical (no. 63)

On’yomi
Kun’yomi
Nanori え、へ

Origin

This character is a simple picture of a door. The vertical line on the left represents the door frame or the side post, while the angular strokes on the right show the door panel itself swinging open or closed. Because doors are fundamental features of houses and rooms, the character came to mean "door" in general, and later was also used as a counter for counting houses, since each house has doors. The shape has been stylized over centuries, but it still carries the basic outline of that simple object.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.

4 strokes

Components

This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (戸).

Common words

  • 井戸 いど water well
  • 雨戸 あまど sliding storm shutter
  • 下戸 げこ non-drinker; someone who cannot drink
  • 戸外 こがい open air; outdoors
  • 戸口 とぐち door; doorway
  • 戸数 こすう number of houses; number of households
  • 戸籍 こせき family register
  • 戸棚 とだな cupboard; locker

Reference

Strokes
4
Kangxi radical
63
Grade
Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#575 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+06238