Meaning & readings
dog
On’yomi ケン
Kun’yomi いぬ、いぬ-
Origin
This character is a picture of a dog. The main component looks like a simplified side view of a four-legged animal with its head, body, and legs, while the small dot marks a specific feature. Over time, the strokes were simplified and stylized until they became the modern character we see today. The shape still suggests the basic form of a dog's body in profile.
Components
- 大
- 丶
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 4
- Kangxi radical
- 94
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1326 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+072AC