明 — bright, clear, light

あかるい明 bright

Grade 2 Japanese school grade level in which this kanji is taught. Grade 1 is first year of elementary school. 8 strokes time

U+660E Unicode hex codepoint — a unique identifier for this character in the Unicode standard. Freq #67 Frequency rank among the ~2,500 most common kanji in Japanese newspapers. Lower number = more common. Heisig #20 Index in James Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji" — a popular textbook that teaches kanji through mnemonics and stories.

Meanings

bright
clear
light
clarity

word

あか aka Kun'yomi Kun'yomi (訓読み) — the native Japanese reading of this kanji. Used when the kanji appears alone or with okurigana (trailing hiragana).

明(あか) るい akarui bright 明(あか) 石(し) akashi Akashi

めい mei On'yomi On'yomi (音読み) — the Sino-Japanese reading, derived from Chinese pronunciation. Most commonly used in compound words (jukugo).

明(めい) mei bright 文(ぶん) 明(めい) bunmei civilization 声(せい) 明(めい) seimei declaration 明(めい) 記(き) meiki clear statement 明(めい) 白(はく) meihaku obvious 明(めい) 細(さい) meisai details 明(めい) 言(げん) meigen declaration 自(じ) 明(めい) jimei self-evident

あ a Kun'yomi Kun'yomi (訓読み) — the native Japanese reading of this kanji. Used when the kanji appears alone or with okurigana (trailing hiragana).

明(あ) ける akeru to dawn 明(あ) かす akasu to reveal 明(あ) け ake dawn 夜(よ) 明(あ) け yoake dawn 明(あ) かり akari light 年(とし) 明(あ) け toshiake beginning of the year

あき aki Kun'yomi Kun'yomi (訓読み) — the native Japanese reading of this kanji. Used when the kanji appears alone or with okurigana (trailing hiragana).

明(あき) らか akiraka obvious

Jukujikun Jukujikun Jukujikun (熟字訓) — special readings where the pronunciation applies to the whole compound word rather than individual kanji. The reading cannot be split per character.

明日(あした) ashita tomorrow 明後日(あさって) asatte day after tomorrow 明日香(あすか) asuka Asuka (place/given name)

Stroke order

Stroke data from KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Components

Composed of

ひ日 sun #72

つき月 month #74

Used as component in (1)

めい盟 alliance

Compound ideograph (会意). Combines 日 (sun) and 月 (moon) — the two brightest celestial bodies together convey brightness and clarity. In oracle bone script, the character depicted moonlight shining through a window.

Open in Atlas

Kangxi Radical The Kangxi radicals are a set of 214 character components standardized in the 1716 Kangxi Dictionary. Every kanji is classified under one radical, used for dictionary lookup and character organization.

#72 日 sun