Meaning & readings
east
On’yomi トウ
Kun’yomi ひがし
Nanori あい、あがり、あずま、あづま、こち、さき、しの、とお、はる、ひが、もと
Origin
The character 東 combines the idea of the sun (日) appearing between two trees (木 on either side). In ancient times, "east" was understood as the direction where the sun rises—between the trees at the horizon. By picturing the sun emerging in this natural scene, the character's shape came to represent the eastern direction. The two tree components frame the sun's position, making the eastward direction visually clear through this simple composition.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 75
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #37 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+06771