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命

Also decree, destiny, life, appoint

Readings

On’yomi

  • メイ
  • ミョウ

Kun’yomi

  • いのち
On’yomi and kun’yomi?

On’yomi are readings that came from Chinese, written here in katakana. Kun’yomi are native Japanese readings, written in hiragana. Which one is used depends on the word: kanji in compounds often take an on’yomi, and a kanji standing alone often takes a kun’yomi.

Stroke order

Strokes from KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Example words

  • 命(いのち)life; life force
  • 運命(うんめい)fate; destiny; lot
  • 使命(しめい)mission; errand
  • 宿命(しゅくめい)fate; destiny; predestination
  • 人命(じんめい)(human) life
  • 生命(せいめい)life; existence
Where do these words come from?

They are common words containing 命, from JMdict, picked automatically with words made of easier kanji first. They are not graded by JLPT level.

Keep exploring

Same radical. KANJIDIC2 files these kanji under radical 口 (no. 30), like 命 (the 8 most common of 65 in the collection).

What is a radical?

Dictionaries file every kanji under one of 214 radicals, a component used for looking it up. A shared radical often hints at a shared theme, but not always, and it says nothing certain about a character’s history. A radical can change shape inside a kanji, as 水 becomes 氵.

Additional detailsSchool grade, frequency, Unicode and sources
School grade
Grade 3 (primary school)
Newspaper frequency
465 of 2,500
Classical radical
口 no. 30
Unicode
U+547D

School grade comes from the Japanese school curriculum. Frequency is the rank among the 2,500 most common kanji in newspapers. Neither is a JLPT level.

Sources for this entry