Meaning & readings
tall, high, expensive
Origin
The character 高 appears to be built from two parts stacked vertically. The bottom part is a square or box shape, and the top part is a similar enclosed form. This stacking creates a visual sense of something rising upward or extending above — the more layers or height you build, the taller the structure becomes. Over time, this picture of height or elevation came to represent the idea of being tall or high. The same visual logic also led to meanings like "expensive," since valuable or superior things were often thought of as being elevated or high in status.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Components
- 冂
- 口
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 10
- Kangxi radical
- 189
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #65 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+09AD8