Meaning & readings

fight, war

On’yomi トウ
Kun’yomi たたか.う、あらそ.う
Nanori

Origin

This character combines a gate radical () as a framing element with sound and meaning components inside. The character provides a sound hint suggesting roughly how the character should be pronounced (like "tō"). The addition of , a measure of small distance, likely contributes to the semantic meaning, and together these inner components suggest the idea of conflict or struggle occurring within defined boundaries, much like a confrontation that takes place in an enclosed space. The gate frame emphasizes this sense of an enclosed struggle or confined battle.

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

18 strokes

Components

  • radical enclosure
  • sound hint left
  • meaning part right

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

Common words

  • 格闘 かくとう (hand-to-hand) fight; grapple
  • 敢闘 かんとう fighting bravely
  • 共闘 きょうとう joint struggle; common (united) front
  • 健闘 けんとう fighting bravely; strenuous efforts
  • 春闘 しゅんとう spring labor offensive; annual spring wage bargaining round
  • 戦闘 せんとう battle; fight
  • 闘争 とうそう fight; battle
  • 奮闘 ふんとう strenuous effort; hard struggle

Reference

Strokes
18
Kangxi radical
169
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#751 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+095D8