字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

iron

On’yomi テツ
Kun’yomi くろがね
Nanori けん、てっ

Origin

The character 鉄 combines the radical 金, which means metal and classifies the character as relating to metals, with 失 on the right, which serves as a sound hint for pronunciation. The left component 金 tells you this character is about a metallic substance, while 失 provides a rough guide to how the word sounds in Chinese and Japanese. Together, these two parts create a character that identifies iron as a specific type of metal.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

鉄 13 strokes

Components

  • 金 radical left
  • 失 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

  • 鋼鉄 こうてつ steel
  • 国鉄 こくてつ national railway
  • 私鉄 してつ private railway
  • 製鉄 せいてつ iron manufacture
  • 銑鉄 せんてつ pig iron
  • 鉄橋 てっきょう railway bridge; iron bridge
  • 鉄筋 てっきん rebar; (iron) reinforcing bar
  • 鉄鉱 てっこう iron ore

Related kanji

Same sound component 失
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
13
Kangxi radical
167
Grade
Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#672 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+09244