Meaning & readings
loom, mechanism, machine, airplane, opportunity, potency, efficacy, occasion
On’yomi キ
Kun’yomi はた
Origin
The character 機 combines the wood radical on the left, which signals something made of wood, with the sound component 幾 on the right, which hints at the pronunciation. In ancient China, the character originally depicted a wooden loom or weaving device—a machine made of wood. Over time, the meaning expanded from the specific object of a loom to machines and mechanical devices in general, and eventually to abstract concepts like opportunity or potential, since both represent something waiting to be triggered or set in motion.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 16
- Kangxi radical
- 75
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #127 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+06A5F