Meaning & readings

stare, watch, look at, see, scrutinize

On’yomi チョウ
Kun’yomi なが.める

Origin

The character 眺 combines the eye radical 目 on the left, which indicates that this character relates to seeing or looking, with the sound component 兆 on the right, which provides a hint about how the character is pronounced. The 兆 component itself means "sign" or "omen," but in this compound it functions purely as a sound guide rather than contributing to the meaning. Together, the eye radical and sound hint create a character that specifically means to gaze at or watch something intently, as if carefully observing signs or details.

眺 11 strokes

Components

  • 目 radical left
  • 兆 sound hint right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 眺望 ちょうぼう view; vista
  • 眺め ながめ scene; view
  • 眺める ながめる to look at; to gaze at

Reference

Strokes
11
Kangxi radical
109
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1726 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+0773A