字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

chess piece, Japanese chess, shogi

On’yomi キ
Kun’yomi ご

Origin

The character 棋 combines wood (木) on the left with a sound component (其) on the right. The wood radical makes sense because chess pieces, especially in shogi, were traditionally carved from wood. The right side (其) is a sound hint that tells you roughly how to pronounce the character—it doesn't contribute to the meaning. Together, this phono-semantic structure creates a character meaning a wooden game piece or the game of chess itself.

棋 12 strokes

Components

  • 木 radical left
  • 其 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

  • 棋士 きし professional shogi player; professional go player
  • 棋譜 きふ record of a game of go, shogi, chess, etc.
  • 将棋 しょうぎ shogi; Japanese chess
  • 棋院 きいん go institution; go club
  • 棋聖 きせい great master of go; great master of shogi
  • 将棋倒し しょうぎだおし falling down one after another (like dominoes)

Related kanji

Same sound component 其
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
12
Kangxi radical
75
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1311 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+068CB