掌: palm of hand, rule

JLPT level N1
12 strokes
Radical 手

Also administer, conduct

Readings

On’yomi

ショウ

Kun’yomi

てのひら
たなごころ

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

0.5×1×2×

Strokes from KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Example words

合掌(がっしょう)pressing one's hands together in prayer
車掌(しゃしょう)(train) conductor
掌握(しょうあく)grasping; seizing; holding
掌中(しょうちゅう)in the hand; (something) easily manipulated

Where do these words come from?

They are common words containing 掌, 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 手 (no. 64), like 掌 (the 8 most common of 87 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: Secondary school
Newspaper frequency: 1,757 of 2,500
Classical radical: 手 no. 64
Unicode: U+638C

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

KANJIDIC2 (CC BY-SA 4.0): meanings, on’yomi, kun’yomi, stroke count, school grade, newspaper frequency, radical
Jonathan Waller's JLPT kanji lists (CC BY): JLPT level
JMdict (CC BY-SA 4.0): example words
KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0): stroke order