字の旅3,000 years in four forms
Oracle bone · ShangShang · c. 1200 BCE鐵42.1合10966
Oracle bone and bronze: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Small seal: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
部首Radical · in Time & Sequence
十 ten, complete
じゅう juu
2 strokesRadical of 11 kanjiPart of 29
Origin · sourced
Ideogram指事
In oracle-bone script, 十 is mostly written as a single vertical stroke; a few examples add a central dot, as in HJ 9204. Later forms added 一, making a cross.
Source: Wiktionary, 十 (rev. 93531290), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Reach the finish line! This radical represents the number ten and the profound sense of arrival and completeness it brings. When you see this cross shape, think of the intersection of all paths and the perfect balance of a finished set. It brings a sense of structural symmetry, numerical order, and the satisfaction of a task well-done to any character it joins.”
Where it sits in a kanji
Indicates the number ten, the concept of completion or being "full," cardinal directions (crosshairs), or a structural intersection.
What it grows into
- 協co-キョウ
十sound + 劦sound
A variant form of 劦 with a phonetic 十 added.
Phono-semantic compound · Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Every kanji with 十 as its radical
All 11 kanji