Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Animals & Wildlife

牧: breed, care for

Also: shepherd, feed, pasture

JLPT N18 strokesGrade 4Your ink: 白 Not met

牛 carries the meaning · 攵 is drawn in

8 strokes

Two readings, and the words that use each

ボクboku · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 牧場ぼくじょう/まきばfarm pasture land, meadow
  • 牧草ぼくそうpasture, grass
  • 牧畜ぼくちくlivestock farming
  • 遊牧民ゆうぼくみんnomads
  • 牧歌的なぼっかてきなpastoral, idyllic
  • 放牧するほうぼくするput out to pasture

まきmaki · kun'yomi · on its own

  • 牧まきpasture, grazing land

Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.

成り立ち

Where it comes from

Origin · sourced

Ideogrammic compound (會意)牛 cow + 攴 a whip

To herd.

Source: Wiktionary, 牧 (rev. 92162017), CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Cow (牛) + hand/tool (攵). To use a tool to guide a "cow" in a field—the essence of a "pasture" or "breeding" animals.”
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered

Easy to confuse

The difference, side by side
牧 breed · 牛
vs枚 sheet of... · 木
牧 has 牛 where 枚 has 木.
In ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · mù

Same form: 牧 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).

Simplified
牧 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
牧 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin mù most common reading

Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.

One click tells us. No sign-up.