Meaning & readings
re-, return, revert, resume, restore, go backwards
On’yomi レイ
Kun’yomi もど.す、もど.る
Origin
This character combines "large" (大) with "door" (戸), which together suggest the idea of something going back through or reversing direction. The door radical (戸) functions here as a classifier indicating action or movement, while the "large" component adds the sense of a significant reversal or return. The combination captures the notion of going backward or restoring something to its former state—much like passing back through a doorway to where you started. Over time, this visual metaphor solidified into the meaning of return, revert, and restore.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 63
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #890 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+0623B