字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

village, town

On’yomi ソン
Kun’yomi むら
Nanori え、むた、ら

Origin

The character 村 combines a wood radical on the left, which suggests something made of or related to trees and natural materials, with a sound hint on the right that indicates how the character should be pronounced. In ancient China, villages were often small settlements built among trees and wooden structures, so the wood component makes sense for representing a rural community. The right component doesn't contribute to the meaning but simply signals roughly how to pronounce the character.

村 7 strokes

Components

  • 木 radical left
  • 寸 sound hint right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 寒村 かんそん poor village; desolate village
  • 漁村 ぎょそん fishing village
  • 村人 むらびと villager
  • 村長 そんちょう village headman; village mayor
  • 村民 そんみん villager
  • 町村 ちょうそん towns and villages
  • 農村 のうそん agricultural community; farm village
  • 山村 さんそん mountain village

Related kanji

Same sound component 寸
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
7
Kangxi radical
75
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#253 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 3
Unicode
U+06751