Meaning & readings
introduce, inherit, help
On’yomi ショウ
Nanori つぐ
Origin
The character 紹 combines thread or silk (糸) on the left with 召 on the right, which serves as a sound hint for pronunciation. The connection between threads and the meanings of introduce or inherit likely comes from the idea of thread as something that links or connects things together—just as a thread joins separate pieces of material, introducing someone joins people together, and inheriting passes something down through a line of continuity. The 召 component doesn't contribute to the meaning but tells you roughly how the character should sound.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 120
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #963 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+07D39