Meaning & readings
thing, object, matter
Origin
This character combines a picture of a cow or ox on the left with a sound component on the right. The cow radical here doesn't mean the character is specifically about cattle, but rather serves as a general classifier for things made from animal material or things in the physical world. The right side, 勿, is a sound hint that signals how to pronounce the character. Over time, the meaning expanded from animal-related objects to mean "thing" or "object" in general, making this a useful character for discussing any physical matter or possession.
Components
- 牛
- 勿
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
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 93
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #215 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+07269