Meaning & readings
valley
On’yomi コク
Kun’yomi たに、きわ.まる
Nanori がい、がえ、がや、せ、たり、たん、や
Origin
This character appears to be a picture of a valley itself. The shape shows a narrow opening at the top that widens as it goes down, mimicking how a valley looks when viewed from above or in profile—steep sides coming together and then spreading out. The vertical lines suggest the walls of the valley, while the opening captures that distinctive geography of land that slopes down into a depression. Over time, the pictorial details simplified into the modern form, but the basic shape still echoes that geographical feature.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (谷).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 150
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #508 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+08C37