Meaning & readings
particularly, especially, exceptionally
On’yomi シュ
Kun’yomi こと
Origin
The character 殊 combines two parts to show something exceptional or unusual. The left component 歹 relates to death or bones and serves as a classifier for words about unusual or extreme states. The right component 朱 is a sound hint that tells you roughly how to pronounce the character (like シュ), but doesn't add meaning itself. Together, the shape came to represent things that stand out as particularly different or exceptional—something so unusual it's almost like a departure from the normal or expected.
Components
- 歹
- 朱
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 10
- Kangxi radical
- 78
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1361 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+06B8A