Meaning & readings

abundant, rich, fertile

On’yomi ユウ
Nanori すけ、のり、ひろ、ひろし、やす、ゆ、ゆたか

Origin

The character 裕 combines clothing or fabric on the left (衤) with a sound hint on the right (谷, which suggests the pronunciation). The left component originally referred to garments, and over time the character expanded to mean "spacious" or "loose-fitting" — the idea of cloth with plenty of room in it. From this sense of spaciousness and room to spare, the meaning broadened to "abundant" and "rich," capturing the feeling of having more than enough. The sound component 谷 guided readers roughly toward the pronunciation ユウ (yu).

裕 12 strokes

Components

  • 衤 radical left
  • 谷 sound hint right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 富裕 ふゆう wealthy; rich
  • 裕福 ゆうふく wealthy; rich
  • 余裕 よゆう surplus; margin

Easily confused with

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

Reference

Strokes
12
Kangxi radical
145
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1048 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+088D5