漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements
土: soil, earth
Also: ground, Turkey
Oracle bone · Shang Bronze · Western Zhou Small seal · Qin Today
Oracle bone and bronze: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Small seal: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Three readings, and the words that use each
ドdo · on'yomi · in compounds
- 土曜日どようびSaturday
- 土日どにちSaturday and Sunday
- 郷土きょうどbirth place
トto · on'yomi
- 土地とちplot of land
つちtsuchi · kun'yomi · on its own
- 土つちsoil
- 土色つちいろearth colored
Special readingsThese words are read as a whole, not from the readings above.
- 土産みやげlocal product, souvenir
Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Pictogram 象形: a mound of earth. In oracle-bone inscriptions, it could also refer to the soil deity, serving as the original graph of 社.
Source: Wiktionary, 土 (rev. 94507204), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Imagine a cross planted firmly in the ground—that's 土! It shows a stake or a seedling marking the earth, reminding us of farming, construction, and the solid foundation upon which we build our lives and cities.”
Connections
土 gives its sound to
The family reading is ト (to). Sound parts: KanjiVG.
Easy to confuse
The difference, side by sideIn ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · tǔ
Same form: 土 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 土 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 土 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin tǔ most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.