Meaning & readings

wisteria

On’yomi トウ、ドウ
Kun’yomi ふじ
Nanori ぞう、と、ふじゅ

Origin

The character 藤 combines a grass radical at the top with the component 滕 below it. The grass radical indicates this is a plant, while 滕 originally represented something that climbs or spreads. Together they picture a climbing plant — specifically the wisteria vine, which grows upward and spreads across structures. The formation makes visual sense: you see the plant marker, then the idea of growth and movement, which captures how wisteria actually behaves in nature.

藤 18 strokes

Components

  • 艹 radical top
  • 滕 meaning part bottom

Common words

  • 葛藤 かっとう conflict; complication

Easily confused with

These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.

Reference

Strokes
18
Kangxi radical
140
Formation type
Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#291 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+085E4