Meaning & readings
fresh, vivid, clear, brilliant, Korea
On’yomi セン
Kun’yomi あざ.やか
Origin
This character combines fish (魚) on the left with sheep (羊) on the right. In ancient Chinese, having both fish and meat was considered a sign of abundance and fine quality, so the combination came to mean "fresh" and "excellent." The character's meaning expanded to describe anything vivid or clear — qualities associated with premium, fresh food. Over time it also acquired the sense of "brilliant" or "striking," and in Japanese it eventually became connected to Korea, likely through historical trade and cultural associations.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 17
- Kangxi radical
- 195
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #355 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+09BAE