漢字Kanji · in Action & Movement
革: leather, skin
Also: reform, become serious
- 廿(form)
- 口mouth(form)
廿 and 口 are drawn in
Oracle bone · Shang Bronze · Western Zhou Small seal · Qin Today
Oracle bone: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Bronze and small seal: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Two readings, and the words that use each
カクkaku · on'yomi · in compounds
- 革命かくめいrevolution
- 革新的なかくしんてきなrevolutionary
- 改革するかいかくするreform [v.t.]
かわkawa · kun'yomi · on its own
- 革かわleather
- 革靴かわぐつleather shoes
- 牛革ぎゅうかわcowhide
Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Pictogram (象形)
A stretched animal hide: the upper is head, the bottom is the tail and legs. The hands 臼 around the hide were briefly added later.
Source: Wiktionary, 革 (rev. 93647842), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“The base kanji for leather, also famously used for "revolution" (改革), representing a fundamental change to the very "skin" or structure of a system.”
Connections
Also built on 廿
In ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · gé
Same form: 革 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 革 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 革 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin gé most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.