漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements
森: forest, woods
木 carries the meaning · 林 is drawn in
Oracle bone · Shang Small seal · Qin Today
Oracle bone and small seal: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Two readings, and the words that use each
シンshin · on'yomi · in compounds
- 森林しんりんforest
- 森閑しんかんsilent; still; quiet
もりmori · kun'yomi · on its own
- 森もりwoods
Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0 · JMdict, EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Ideogrammic compound (會意)木 tree + 木 tree + 木 tree
Triplication of 木 (“tree”), to suggest a large number (compare 三) of trees such as one would find in a forest.
Source: Wiktionary, 森 (rev. 93408668), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Three trees gathered in one place = a deep, dense forest where the sunlight barely touches the ground.”
Connections
Also built on grove (林)
Easy to confuse
The difference, side by sideIn ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · sēn
Same form: 森 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 森 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 森 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin sēn most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.