Meaning & readings
stop-over, reside in, resident
On’yomi チュウ
Origin
The left side shows a horse (馬), which is the meaning component here — it hints at something related to animals or vehicles. The right side (主) is a sound hint that tells you roughly how to pronounce the character (like "chuu"). The combination suggests a horse stopping or staying in one place, which led to the meaning of stopping over or residing somewhere. Over time, the sense of a horse halting evolved into the general idea of staying put or being stationed in a location.
Common words
- 常駐 じょうちゅう permanent stationing; staying permanently
- 進駐 しんちゅう occupation; stationing
- 駐在 ちゅうざい residence; stay
- 駐車 ちゅうしゃ parking (a vehicle)
- 駐屯 ちゅうとん stationing (troops); garrisoning
- 駐日 ちゅうにち resident in Japan (of a foreign ambassador, government official, etc.)
- 駐留 ちゅうりゅう stationing (e.g. of troops); garrison
- 駐車場 ちゅうしゃじょう parking lot; car park
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 15
- Kangxi radical
- 187
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #955 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+099D0