Meaning & readings
topic, subject
Origin
The character 題 combines a radical meaning "head" or "face" (the 頁 component on the right) with a sound hint 是 on the left that suggests the pronunciation. The idea is that a "topic" or "subject" is something that stands out or comes to the forefront—like a head or face appearing prominently. Over time, the character came to specifically mean the heading or main subject that sits at the top of a discussion, piece of writing, or problem. The 是 component doesn't contribute to the meaning but rather helped readers know roughly how to pronounce the character.
Components
- 是
- 頁
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 18
- Kangxi radical
- 181
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #96 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+0984C