Meaning & readings
cloud
On’yomi ウン
Kun’yomi くも、-ぐも
Nanori き、ずも、のめ
Origin
The character 雲 pictures a cloud by combining the rain radical 雨 at the top, which establishes the meaning of something related to water and weather, with the component 云 below it that serves as a sound hint for how to pronounce the character. The rain radical 雨 makes sense because clouds are closely associated with rain and moisture in the sky. Over time, the two parts fused into a single character that directly represents the concept of a cloud while keeping the pronunciation clue built into its structure.
Components
- 雨
- 云
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 12
- Kangxi radical
- 173
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1256 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+096F2