Meaning & readings
resemblance
On’yomi ショウ
Kun’yomi あやか.る
Origin
This character combines two components to show resemblance or similarity. The bottom part, the moon radical (月), originally represented flesh or the body — the physical form of a person. The top part serves as a sound hint for pronunciation, not a meaning element. Together, the character suggests the idea of physical likeness or taking after someone's appearance, which developed into the broader sense of resemblance.
Components
- ⺌
- 月
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 130
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1889 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+08096