Meaning & readings
one-sided, leaf, sheet, right-side kata radical (no. 91)
Origin
The character 片 appears to be a picture of a single leaf or piece of something broken off. The strokes form a simple shape suggesting a flat, thin object—like one half of something that has been split. Because a leaf or sheet is literally one-sided and incomplete compared to a whole object, the character came to mean "one-sided" or "partial." The word "kata" in Japanese, meaning a form or style, also connects to this idea of a single piece or fragment that stands on its own.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (片).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 4
- Kangxi radical
- 91
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1076 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+07247