Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Human Body & People

聖: holy, saint

Also: sage, master, priest

JLPT N113 strokesGrade 6Your ink: 白 Not met

耳 carries the meaning · 口 and 王 give the sound

13 strokes
  • Small seal · Qin
  • Today

Small seal: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.

One reading, and the words that use it

セイsei · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 聖書せいしょBible
  • 聖歌せいかhymn
  • 聖人せいじんsaint [n.]
  • 聖母せいぼVirgin Mary
  • 聖火せいかsacred fire, Olympic flame
  • 聖域せいいきsacred precincts
  • 神聖なしんせいなholy, sacred, consecrated

Also read ショウ, ひじり, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.

成り立ち

Where it comes from

Origin · sourced

Phono-semantic compound (形聲)耳 ear (meaning) + 呈 (sound)

Source: Wiktionary, 聖 (rev. 92930269), CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Ear + mouth + king (王 simplified) = a person who truly 'listens' to the divine and speaks with the wisdom of a great king.”
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
In ChineseSimplified 圣 · traditional, as in Japanese · shèng

Japan keeps the traditional form 聖; mainland China simplifies it to 圣.

Simplified
圣 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
聖 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin shèng most common reading

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

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