Meaning & readings
mother
On’yomi ボ
Kun’yomi はは、も
Origin
The character 母 appears to show a woman's form in a simplified, stylized way. The two strokes on the sides suggest arms or the sides of a body, while the middle strokes represent the torso and the distinctive feature of motherhood. This pictographic origin—depicting a female figure—naturally led to the meaning "mother." Over time, the shape was simplified and regularized into the five strokes we see today, but the core idea remained: a visual representation of the woman who gives birth and nurtures.
Components
- 毋
- 毋
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 5
- Kangxi radical
- 80
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #570 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+06BCD