Meaning & readings

harmony

On’yomi カイ
Kun’yomi かな.う、やわ.らぐ

Origin

This character combines "words" () on the left with "all" or "together" () 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.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).

16 strokes

Components

  • radical left
  • meaning part right

Reference

Strokes
16
Kangxi radical
149
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
Former JLPT
Unicode
U+08AE7