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Kanji Detail for 氣 - "spirit, air, mood"
氣
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Meaning
氣 means "spirit, air, mood."
Spirit - Energy; vitality.
Air - Atmosphere; breath.
Mood - A feeling; a temperament.
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Origin of 氣
The traditional form of 気. Scholarly accounts read it as 米, rice, for the meaning with 气 — drifting vapour — for the sound; the oldest sense is grain presented to a guest, and 氣 later absorbed 气's own sense of vapour and breath. The familiar picture of steam rising off cooked rice is a later gloss. The postwar reform adopted the long-current abbreviation 気, with 乂 inside.
How to remember it: Rice 米 wrapped in vapour 气 — the character that ended up meaning breath, energy, ki.
Sources: en.wiktionary.org · mojinavi.com
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Tattoo check: 氣
- Verified meaning: spirit, air, mood
- Jinmeiyō kanji — officially approved for use in Japanese given names
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.
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Dictionary Citations
The meaning above is based on the following sources:
KANJIDIC2 A comprehensive Japanese-English kanji dictionary
spirit; mind; air; atmosphere; mood
Unihan Unicode Han Database for CJK characters
air, gas, steam, vapor; spirit
CC-CEDICT A Chinese-English dictionary
gas; air; smell; weather; to make angry; to annoy; to get angry; vital energy; qi
Make Me a Hanzi Open-source Chinese character data
air, gas; steam, vapor; anger
XSZD Xuéshēng Zìdiǎn (學生字典) - Student's Dictionary
Breath. Referring to what is inhaled and exhaled. That which has no visible form but can be sensed is called 氣. As in fortune (氣運), weather (氣象), smell (氣味), charm (氣韻), and the like. Spirit manifested externally, as in courage (勇氣), spirit (神氣). | Climate. As in seasonal weather is called 節氣 (solar terms). | Colloquially, anger is called 氣. As in getting angry is called 動氣.
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Onyomi
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Kunyomi
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Strokes
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Radical
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Related Keywords