Meaning & readings
impart, instruct, grant, confer
On’yomi ジュ
Kun’yomi さず.ける、さず.かる
Origin
The left part, the hand radical (扌), shows this is about an action you do with your hands. The right part (受) is a sound hint that tells you roughly how to pronounce the character — it sounds like "ju" — but doesn't contribute to the meaning itself. Together, the character originally portrayed the physical act of handing something over to someone, which is why it came to mean giving instruction, granting permission, or conferring a role. The hand component makes clear this is about transfer or giving, while the sound component locks in how the word should be pronounced.
Components
- 扌
- 受
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 64
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #535 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+06388