Meaning & readings
harmony
On’yomi カイ
Kun’yomi かな.う、やわ.らぐ
Origin
This character combines "words" (言) on the left with "all" or "together" (皆) on the right to express the idea of harmony. When words or voices come together in agreement, that creates harmony. The "words" component indicates this is about communication and accord, while "all together" reinforces the sense of unity. So the character literally shows the concept of all words coming into alignment, which is what harmony means.
Reference
- Strokes
- 16
- Kangxi radical
- 149
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- —
- Former JLPT
- —
- Unicode
- U+08AE7