Meaning & readings
come, due, next, cause, become
On’yomi ライ、タイ
Kun’yomi く.る、きた.る、きた.す、き.たす、き.たる、き、こ
Nanori くり、くる、ごろ、さ
Origin
The character 来 most likely depicts a plant or grain stalk, with the horizontal lines representing seeds or grain heads and the vertical lines forming the stem. Over time, the meaning shifted from the concrete image of grain to the abstract idea of "coming" or "arrival" — possibly because grain was something that came to people seasonally during harvest, or because the character's visual growth from bottom to top suggested forward movement and approach. This sense of approach and movement became the primary meaning, while the original picture-based origin faded from everyday use.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (来).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 75
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #102 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+06765