Meaning & readings
bend, music, melody, composition, pleasure, injustice, fault, curve, crooked, perverse, lean
Origin
This character combines the square shape representing an enclosed space or container (日) with a component suggesting something folded or bent inward. The idea is that music and melody exist within a defined structure—like a composition contained within measures or time—while the bent or curved element hints at the twists and turns of a musical phrase. Over time, the character came to mean both the physical act of bending and the abstract concept of music as something with shape and structure. The connection to "injustice" likely derives from the idea of something twisted or warped from its proper form.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 6
- Kangxi radical
- 73
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #810 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+066F2