Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Human Body & People

鉄: iron

JLPT N213 strokesGrade 3Your ink: 白 Not met

金 carries the meaning · 失 gives the sound

13 strokes

One reading, and the words that use it

テツtetsu · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 鉄てつiron
  • 鉄道てつどうrailroad
  • 鉄骨てっこつsteel frame
  • 鉄砲てっぽうgun
  • 鉄鋼てっこうiron and steel
  • 製鉄せいてつsteelmaking
  • 私鉄してつprivate railway
  • 地下鉄ちかてつunderground train, subway

Also read くろがね, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.

Learn it 4 steps
Print sheet Present
成り立ち

Where it comes from

Origin · sourced

Phono-semantic compound (形聲)金 metal (meaning) + 𢧤 (sound)

The original version, according to the Shuowen Jiezi, is 𨮯, with 大 on top, hence the original phonetic component should be not 𢧜.

Source: Wiktionary, 鐵 (rev. 93430798), CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Metal (金) + lost (失). It originally referred to a metal that was so common and useful it could be "lost" or used liberally compared to rare gold—iron.”
From the 金 metal story
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
金

Also built on metal (金)

All 34
失

Also built on lose (失)

鉄 takes the 失 family's reading, テツ (tetsu).

Also read テツ

4 kanji share this on'yomi

Easy to confuse

The difference, side by side
鉄 iron · 失
vs鈍 dull · 屯
鉄 has 失 where 鈍 has 屯.
In ChineseSimplified 铁 · traditional 鐵 · tiě

Three different forms: Japanese 鉄, simplified 铁, traditional 鐵.

Simplified
铁 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
鐵 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin tiě 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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