Meaning & readings
record
On’yomi ロク
Kun’yomi しる.す、と.る
Origin
The character 録 combines metal (金) on the left, which suggests something durable and permanent, with a sound component (彔) on the right that indicates the pronunciation. In ancient times, important records were inscribed on bronze vessels and metal objects, so the metal radical became associated with the act of recording. The right side doesn't contribute meaning but signals how the character should be pronounced. Over time, the character came to mean "record" or "to record" more broadly, even though the recording medium changed from metal to paper and brush.
Components
- 金
- 彔
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 16
- Kangxi radical
- 167
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #546 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+09332