Meaning & readings
melodious, clear, bright, serene, cheerful
On’yomi ロウ
Kun’yomi ほが.らか、あき.らか
Nanori あき、あきら、お、さえ、ろ
Origin
This character combines a sound hint with a meaning component. The left part, 良, tells you roughly how to pronounce the character — something like "ro" sound. The right part, 月, originally meant "moon" but in many characters it represents flesh or body. Together, the two parts suggest something luminous or radiant about a person — like moonlight shining clearly on flesh, evoking the sense of brightness and cheerfulness that the character expresses. Over time, the meaning expanded to include the abstract ideas of clarity and serenity that accompany such radiance.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 10
- Kangxi radical
- 74
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1374 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+06717