Meaning & readings
month, moon
On’yomi ゲツ、ガツ
Kun’yomi つき
Nanori おと、がっ、す、ずき、もり
Origin
This character is a simple picture of the moon or a lunar month. The four strokes form a shape like a crescent or the outline of the moon as it appears in the sky. Because the moon's cycle was used to measure time in East Asia, this symbol came to represent both the moon itself and the concept of a month. The character's simple, iconic form made it easy to recognize and write, so it became one of the fundamental characters in the writing system.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (月).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 4
- Kangxi radical
- 74
- Grade
- Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #23 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+06708