KANJI: OU kimi (king)

ASCII Art Representation:

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Character Etymology:

This character was once written as the blade of a large battle axe. Over the years, much like the Enlish idiom of something like, "big shot," it became to mean powerful figure, and then eventually it came to mean king.

Other Facts:

One popular but incorrect theory about this meaning of this character was to suggest that the three horizontal lines represented the three orders of heaven, earth, and man united by a all-perfavind force, represented by the single verticle line: hence king. Again, this is thought to be incorrect.

A listing of all on-yomi and kun-yomi readings:

on-yomi: OU
kun-yomi: kimi

Nanori Readings:

Nanori: (none)

English Definitions:

1. OO, kimi: king, rule, magnate, baron.

Unicode Encoded Version:

王

Unicode Encoded Compound Examples:

王様 (oosama): king.
王子 (ooji): prince.
女王 (jooo): queen.
王国 (ookoku): kingdom, monarchy.
王朝 (oochoo): dynasty.

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