Meaning & readings
parent, intimacy, relative, familiarity, dealer (cards)
On’yomi シン
Kun’yomi おや、おや-、した.しい、した.しむ
Nanori ぎ、ちか、のり
Origin
The left side of this character combines 辛 (which sounds like shin) with 木 (tree), giving a sound hint for how the character should be pronounced. The right side is 見, meaning "to see" or "to look," which acts as a classifier suggesting the category. Together, the character evolved to mean someone you look to and are close to — a parent or relative. The "see" component captures the idea of recognizing and being familiar with someone, which is the core of intimacy and kinship.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 16
- Kangxi radical
- 147
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #406 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+089AA