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Kanji Detail for 寡 - "few, widow"

寡

  • Meaning

    寡 means "few, widow." Also associated with alone.

    1. Few - Small in number.

    2. Widow - A woman whose husband has died.

    3. Alone - Solitary; without others.

  • Words using 寡

    • 寡占 かせん Listen oligopoly; control of a market

  • Four-character idioms with 寡

    • 寡頭政治 かとうせいじ Listen oligarchy
    • 小国寡民 しょうこくかみん Listen small country with a small population (The Chinese philosopher Lao-tze's ideal of a state)
    • 沈黙寡言 ちんもくかげん Listen taciturn; reticent
    • 浅学寡聞 せんがくかぶん Listen shallow learning and limited information; being ignorant and badly informed
    • 鰥寡孤独 かんかこどく Listen with no one upon whom to depend; utter loneliness; the lonely and the helpless

  • Tattoo check: 寡

    • Verified meaning: few, widow
    • Official Jōyō kanji — a standard character every Japanese reader recognises
    • Also carries these associations: alone

    A single kanji rarely maps one-to-one onto an English word. Read the meanings and associations above as a set — a character that fits the dictionary definition can still carry a connotation you did not intend.

  • Dictionary Citations

    The meaning above is based on the following sources:

    KANJIDIC2 A comprehensive Japanese-English kanji dictionary

    widow; minority; few

    Unihan Unicode Han Database for CJK characters

    widowed; alone, friendless

    CC-CEDICT A Chinese-English dictionary

    few; scant; widowed

    Make Me a Hanzi Open-source Chinese character data

    widowed; friendless, alone

    XSZD Xuéshēng Zìdiǎn (學生字典) - Student's Dictionary

    Few. Opposite of many. | A woman without a husband at fifty is called 寡. Now, any woman who has lost her husband is called 寡. | A humble term. Anciently, feudal lords called themselves 寡人. People referred to their own ruler to foreigners as 寡君. Both humbly claiming lack of virtue.

  • Onyomi

    tip

    ka(カ) カ

  • Kunyomi

    tip
    none

  • Strokes

    tip

    14 strokes

  • Radical

    tip

    宀 (ukammuri)

  • Related Keywords

    few widow alone humble reduce decrease weak scanty scarce meager rare solitary sparse lonely

Sentences including 寡

  • My father is a man of few words.

  • Tom is a man of few wants.

  • He used to be a quiet man.

  • He put up a brave and lone struggle, but up against such heavy odds he couldn't get his business plan accepted.

Sentences from Japanese classical masterpieces

More kanji with the radical 宀 (ukammuri)

See all kanji with this radical →

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