Meaning & readings
tongue, reed, clapper
On’yomi ゼツ
Kun’yomi した
Origin
This character appears to combine the idea of "many" or "abundant" (represented by the thousand-like component at top) with "mouth" (the square mouth shape at bottom). The shape suggests something that fills or extends from the mouth — the tongue, which is the soft, flexible part inside the mouth that moves around. By extension, it also came to mean the clapper of a bell, which dangles and moves inside like a tongue, or a reed that vibrates in wind. The combination of these visual elements captures the essence of something active and prominent within an enclosed space.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 6
- Kangxi radical
- 135
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1830 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+0820C