Meaning & readings
renowned, publish, write, remarkable, phenomenal, put on, don, wear, arrival, finish (race), counter for suits of clothing, literary work
Origin
This character combines a grass radical at the top with the character 者 (which sounds like "sha") at the bottom as a sound hint. The grass element originally suggested something visible or prominent growing, which connected to the idea of being "remarkable" or "renowned." Over time, the character's meanings expanded to include "write" and "publish" because written works make ideas visible and prominent, just like grass stands out. The 者 component doesn't contribute to the meaning — it simply signals how the character should be pronounced.
Components
- 艹
- 者
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 140
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #849 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+08457