Meaning & readings
hold, have
On’yomi ジ
Kun’yomi も.つ、-も.ち、も.てる
Nanori もち、もつ
Origin
This character combines a hand component on the left with the character for "temple" on the right. The hand element indicates the basic meaning of holding or grasping something physically. The temple character on the right serves as a sound hint, suggesting how the character should be pronounced rather than adding to its meaning. Together, the hand and sound hint formed a character meaning to hold or possess, whether literally in your hands or more broadly as something you have.
Components
- 扌
- 寺
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 9
- Kangxi radical
- 64
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #119 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+06301