Meaning & readings
garment, clothes, dressing
Origin
The character 衣 is a picture of a garment or robe as seen from above or in a simplified form. The shape shows the basic outline of clothing with sleeves or panels spreading outward, which is why it came to mean "garment" and "clothes" in general. Over time, this simple drawing became more stylized through repeated writing, but the character still carries the visual suggestion of a piece of fabric worn on the body. This character is so closely tied to the concept of clothing that it also serves as a component in many other kanji related to garments and dress.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (衣).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 6
- Kangxi radical
- 145
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1214 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+08863