Meaning & readings
horse
On’yomi バ、メ、マ、ボ、モ
Kun’yomi うま、ま
Nanori た、ばん
Origin
This character is a simplified picture of a horse. The strokes represent the animal's head, body, and four legs, much like a stick-figure drawing. Over centuries of writing, the original detailed horse shape became more angular and abstract, but the basic outline still suggests a four-legged creature standing in profile. Because horses were important animals in East Asian societies, the character developed into one of the most commonly used animal names in written language.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (馬).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 10
- Kangxi radical
- 187
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #639 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+099AC