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元 means 'origin; original'

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Strokes : 4    Frequency: 223   JLPT: N4    Usefulness: 2    Challenge set: 4    Grade: 2   Intermediate lesson: 10    Beginner lesson: 19   Begins 125 words   Used in 385 words   Used in 2610 names   Component in 8 kanji (5 Jōyō)
Jōyō (常用)
Common readings
On
   ゲン   ガン
Kun
   もと origin
Additional readings
Name    ちか   はじめ   はる   ゆき   よし
Components
⿱  二 two  儿 legs  
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Most useful words by reading
In the most useful 10,000 words in Japanese, 元 is used 21 times, read 3 ways.
Across all words in Japanese, 元 is used 378 times, read 3 ways.
ゲン : 219 words FIND ALL
1. lively; full of spirit; energetic; vigorous; vital; spirited
2. healthy; well; fit; in good health
(click the word to view an additional 2 forms)
5
1
TEST
ガン : 11 words FIND ALL
adverbial noun (fukushitekimeishi), noun (temporal) (jisoumeishi)
first year (of a specific reign)
1
4
TEST
もと : 148 words FIND ALL
noun
1. home area; home town
2. local
1
2
TEST
Quick links
QUICK SEARCH WORD SEARCH KANJI SEARCH COMPONENT SEARCH Find kanji that refer to 元
More information
Wiktionary ⇗ | Unicode.org ⇗ | Google Japan ⇗
Additional data
Henshall: 117 (originally: 106)  Joy o' Kanji : 106  Key to Kanji: 284 

Cascading kanji view

元
ゲン   ガン   origin; original   もと origin   
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2
二
ニ   ふたつ    ふた two   
1
儿
legs
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Search results include information from a variety of sources, including Kanshudo (kanji mnemonics, kanji readings, kanji components, vocab and name frequency data, grammar points), JMdict (vocabulary), Tatoeba (examples), Enamdict (names), KanjiVG (kanji animations and stroke order), and Joy o' Kanji (kanji and radical synopses). Translations provided by Google's Neural Machine Translation engine. For more information see credits.
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