Meaning & readings
monkey
On’yomi エン
Kun’yomi さる
Nanori さ、さわ、ざる、まし
Origin
This character combines the animal radical on the left, which marks it as a creature, with a sound component on the right that hints at the pronunciation. The character was formed by taking the shape for "monkey" and pairing it with a phonetic element to help readers know how to say it. The left part tells you it's an animal, while the right part gives you a clue to the sound "en."
Components
- ⺨
- 袁
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
- 13
- Kangxi radical
- 94
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1772 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+0733F