Meaning & readings
near, early, akin, tantamount
On’yomi キン、コン
Kun’yomi ちか.い
Nanori おう、おお、この
Origin
This character combines a walking or movement radical on the left, which suggests the idea of approaching or coming close, with the component 斤 on the right, which serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation. The walking element captures the physical sense of drawing near—getting closer by moving toward something. Over time, this visual idea of approaching expanded to mean "near" or "close" in a more general sense, and eventually also took on related meanings like "early" or "akin." The 斤 component doesn't contribute to the meaning but helps indicate how the character should be pronounced.
Components
- 斤
- ⻌
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 162
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #194 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+08FD1