Meaning & readings

small bell, buzzer

On’yomi レイ、リン
Kun’yomi すず
Nanori ず

Origin

The character 鈴 combines the metal radical 金 on the left, which marks it as something made of metal, with 令 on the right, which serves as a sound hint suggesting the pronunciation. Since bells are metal objects that make ringing sounds, the metal component perfectly captures what a bell is made from. The 令 component doesn't contribute to the meaning but helps speakers remember how to pronounce the character, much like how a rhyming word can help you remember a phone number.

鈴 13 strokes

Components

  • 金 radical left
  • 令 sound hint right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 風鈴 ふうりん wind chime; wind bell

Easily confused with

These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.

Reference

Strokes
13
Kangxi radical
167
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#880 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+09234