Meaning & readings
family name, surname, clan
On’yomi シ
Kun’yomi うじ、-うじ
Origin
This character appears to be a pictograph of a man's name tag or clan marker. The four strokes roughly depict a simple rectangular form that originally represented a tablet or badge used to identify a person's family or clan. In ancient times, such markers were essential for tracking lineage and group membership, so the shape naturally came to mean family name or clan. Over time, the concrete image simplified into the abstract character we see today, but it retained the meaning of family or surname.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (氏).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 4
- Kangxi radical
- 83
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #84 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+06C0F