Meaning & readings
awe, respect, honor, revere
Origin
This character combines a component suggesting carefulness or attention with a radical meaning "action" or "strike." The left part originally depicted plant growth that requires careful tending, which came to represent the idea of being attentive and cautious. The right part is a marker indicating this is about how people act or behave. Together, the character shows the physical expression of respect — the careful, attentive way you move and conduct yourself in front of someone you honor. Over time, this visual idea of reverent behavior came to mean respect and awe themselves.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Components
- 苟
- 攵
Common words
- 敬う うやまう to show respect for; to revere
- 敬意 けいい respect; honour
- 敬遠 けいえん pretending to respect (someone) while in fact staying distant; keeping at arm's length
- 敬具 けいぐ yours sincerely; sincerely yours
- 敬語 けいご honorific; term of respect
- 敬称 けいしょう honorific title; honorific term of address
- 敬老 けいろう respect for the aged
- 失敬 しっけい rudeness; impoliteness
Reference
- Strokes
- 12
- Kangxi radical
- 66
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1078 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+0656C