Meaning & readings
sweet, coax, pamper, be content, sugary
On’yomi カン
Kun’yomi あま.い、あま.える、あま.やかす、うま.い
Nanori かも
Origin
The character 甘 appears to be built from two instances of 廿, which represents "twenty" or a bundle. The doubled visual suggests abundance or concentration—a pile-up of sweetness. In ancient Chinese, sweetness was associated with what's good, pleasant, and satisfying, so a character showing concentrated or abundant pleasant flavor naturally came to mean "sweet." Over time, the meaning expanded to include related senses like contentment and being coaxed or pampered, since sweet things are indulgent and agreeable.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Components
- 廿
- 廿
Common words
- 甘い あまい sweet-tasting; sweet
- 甘え あまえ overdependence (on others; usu. one's fosterers or seniors); lack of self-reliance
- 甘言 かんげん sweet words; smooth talk
- 甘酢 あまず sweet vinegar
- 甘美 かんび sweet (taste); luscious
- 甘味 あまみ sweetness; sugary taste
- 甘える あまえる to behave like a spoiled child; to fawn on
- 甘味料 かんみりょう sweetener (sugar, honey, saccharin, maltose, etc.); sweetening agent
Reference
- Strokes
- 5
- Kangxi radical
- 99
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1248 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+07518