Meaning & readings
time, about, toward
On’yomi ケイ、キョウ
Kun’yomi ころ、ごろ、しばら.く
Nanori ころも
Origin
The character 頃 combines two components: 頁, which means head or page, and 匕, a smaller element on the left. The pairing of "head" with this additional component most likely developed to express the idea of a turning point or moment—as if referring to when the head turns or changes direction. Over time, this visual metaphor shifted to mean a period of time or era, since both involve a sense of transition or change. The character came to mean "about" or "approximately" because time periods are inherently fuzzy and imprecise, much like saying "around that time" in everyday speech.
Components
- 匕
- 頁
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 181
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #2015 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- —
- Unicode
- U+09803