漢字Kanji · in States & Attributes
天: heavens, sky
Also: imperial
一 and 大 carry the meaning
Oracle bone · Shang Bronze · Western Zhou Today
Oracle bone and bronze: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Three readings, and the words that use each
テンten · on'yomi · in compounds
- 天気てんきweather, fine weather
- 天候てんこうweather
- 天国てんごくheaven
- 天才てんさいgenius
- 晴天せいてんfine weather
- 雨天うてんrainy weather
- 先天的なせんてんてきなinnate
あめame · kun'yomi · on its own
- 天あめheaven, sky
あま-ama- · kun'yomi
- 天の川あまのがわMilky Way
Special readingsThese words are read as a whole, not from the readings above.
- 天皇てんのうemperor
Also read あまつ, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Phono-semantic compound (形聲)大 (meaning) + 丁 (sound)
Zh:,yue:,en:Tian.
Source: Wiktionary, 天 (rev. 93740158), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Large (大) + a line above. Imagine a giant person (大) with the vast, infinite "sky" or "heaven" resting just above their head—the highest point reachable.”
Connections
Also read テン
12 kanji share this on'yomiIn ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · tiān
Same form: 天 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 天 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 天 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin tiān most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.