漢字Kanji · in Textiles, Plants & Food
終: end, finish
糸 carries the meaning · 冬 gives the sound
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
シュウshuu · on'yomi · in compounds
- 終了するしゅうりょうするend [v.i., v.t.]
- 終戦しゅうせんend of war
- 最終さいしゅうfinal
- 終点しゅうてんlast stop (e.g. train)
おわるowaru · kun'yomi · on its own
- 終わるおわるfinish [v.i.]
- 終わらせるおわらせるmake something finish
おえるoeru · kun'yomi
- 終えるおえるfinish [v.t.]
Also read -おわる, おわる, つい, ついに, 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)糸, as 糹 (meaning) + 冬 (sound)
Originally a pictogram (象形), 夂 (definition 2) – the knot at the end of a cord. Later reformulated as a phono-semantic compound (形聲): semantic 糹 + phonetic 冬.
Source: Wiktionary, 終 (rev. 93475111), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Everything is connected! This radical represents the invisible threads that tie us together—our relationships, the fine "silk" of our words, and the intricate weaving of our personal histories.”
Connections
Easy to confuse
The difference, side by sideIn ChineseSimplified 终 · traditional, as in Japanese · zhōng
Japan keeps the traditional form 終; mainland China simplifies it to 终.
- Simplified
- 终 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 終 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin zhōng most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.