kanji

Meaning

1. (uncountable) The system of writing Japanese using Chinese characters.
2. (countable, uncountable) Any individual Chinese character as used in the Japanese language.

Synonyms

Chinese characters

Chinese character

man’s handwriting

Kanji

Translations

Kanji

kanji

kanji

kanji

kanji

carácter japonés

kanji

sinojapanisches Schriftzeichen

حَرْف يَابَانِيّ

caractères sino-japonais

kanji

japanisches Zeichen

كَانْجِي

طَابِع يَابَانِيّ

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈkænd͡ʒi/

Etymology

Cognate with Korean: 한자

Cognate with Mandarin Chinese: 漢字

Cognate with Vietnamese: Hán tự

Cognate with Cantonese: 漢字

In summary

Borrowed from Japanese 漢字(かんじ) (kanji, “Chinese characters”), from Middle Chinese 漢 (MC xanH, “Han dynasty, China”) + Middle Chinese 字 (MC dziH, “[written] character”) (Compare Korean 한자 (hanja), Mandarin 漢字 /汉字 (hànzì), Vietnamese Hán tự, Hokkien 漢字 /汉字 (hàn-jī / hàn-lī), Cantonese 漢字 /汉字 (hon³ zi⁶)). Doublet of hanja and Hanzi.