Meaning & readings

transit, ford, ferry, cross, import, deliver, diameter, migrate

On’yomi
Kun’yomi わた.る、-わた.る、わた.す
Nanori お、たり、わたな、わたら、わたり

Origin

This character combines water (the left component) with a sound hint on the right. The water radical makes sense because the main meanings involve crossing or moving across water — fording a river, ferrying across, or transporting things by boat. The right component acts as a sound guide, telling you roughly how to pronounce the character, rather than adding to its meaning. Together, the water element captures the core idea of crossing or transit, especially in a watery context.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

12 strokes

Components

  • radical left
  • 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

  • 過渡 かと crossing; ferry
  • 譲渡 じょうと transfer; assignment
  • 渡す わたす to ferry across (e.g. a river); to carry across
  • 渡り わたり crossing; passage
  • 渡る わたる to cross over; to go across
  • 渡航 とこう voyage; passage
  • 渡来 とらい visit (from abroad)
  • 渡し わたし ferry (crossing); ferry(boat)

Reference

Strokes
12
Kangxi radical
85
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#446 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+06E21