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Family Crest

On’yomiもん
MeaningsFamily Crest, Figures
JLPT N1 10 strokes #1484 most common Secondary school Radical silk
書き順 · Stroke order

How to write 紋

Stroke order is not decoration — it determines how the character looks handwritten and how dictionaries index it.

10 strokes
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分解 · What it is made of

The parts of 紋

Almost every kanji is built from a small set of reusable parts. Learn the parts once and you stop memorising thousands of unrelated shapes.

Why it sounds the way it does. The part is the phonetic component — it carries the sound rather than the meaning. That is why 紋 is read もん. Roughly two-thirds of all kanji work this way, which makes unfamiliar readings guessable once you spot the pattern.
部首 · Radical

The radical of 紋

Radical 120 of 214
Silk

The radical is the part a paper dictionary files a kanji under, and it usually hints at meaning. 紋 is filed under (silk) — radical number 120 of the 214 in the Kangxi system.

Other kanji built on 糸

練習 · Practice

Drill 紋 right now

Three quick games built from this character's real data. Your streak is kept in this browser.

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Family Crest もん
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熟語 · In real words

Words that use 紋

Kanji are almost never met alone. These are the most common words built from this character, ordered by how often they actually appear in Japanese.

波紋 はもん ripple; ring on the water; repercussions
指紋 しもん fingerprint
紋様 もんよう pattern; design
声紋 せいもん voiceprint
紋章 もんしょう crest; coat of arms
家紋 かもん family crest
紋切型 もんきりがた formulaic; stereotyped; hackneyed
紋切り型 もんきりがた formulaic; stereotyped; hackneyed
紋付 もんつき clothing (e.g. kimono) decorated with one's family crest
紋付き もんつき clothing (e.g. kimono) decorated with one's family crest
名乗り · Name readings

How 紋 is read in names

Japanese names use readings that appear nowhere else in the language. These are 紋's — the reason personal and place names are so hard to read even for native speakers.

あや
同音 · Sound-alikes

Kanji that sound like 紋

Japanese has far more kanji than syllables, so one reading is shared by many characters. These are the ones you will confuse with 紋 — learn them together, not separately.

地名 · In place names

Japanese towns written with 紋

Place names are where kanji readings get strange — and where you meet this character in the wild.

画数 · 10 strokes

Other 10-stroke kanji

Useful when looking a character up by stroke count — and a common source of visual mix-ups.

頻度 · Frequency

Next in the frequency list

紋 is the 1484th most common kanji in written Japanese. Learning in frequency order is the fastest route to reading real text.

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質問 · Questions

About the kanji 紋

What does the kanji 紋 mean?

紋 means Family Crest, Figures. It is the 1484th most common kanji in written Japanese.

How do you read the kanji 紋?

紋 is read on'yomi (Chinese-derived) もん.

How many strokes does 紋 have?

紋 is written with 10 strokes. The animated diagram on this page shows the correct order.

What level is the kanji 紋?

It appears at JLPT level N1, and Japanese schoolchildren learn it in secondary school.

What is the radical of 紋?

The radical of 紋 is 糸 (silk), radical number 120 of the 214 Kangxi radicals. The radical is the component a dictionary files the character under, and it usually points at the character's meaning.

What parts is the kanji 紋 made of?

紋 is built from 糸 (thread) and 文 (sentence). Learning kanji as combinations of a few hundred reusable components is far more efficient than memorising each character as a separate shape.

Why is 紋 read もん?

紋 contains 文 as its phonetic component — the part that carries the sound rather than the meaning, which is why 紋 is read もん. Roughly two-thirds of all kanji are built this way, so spotting the phonetic component often lets you guess the reading of a character you have never seen.

What words use the kanji 紋?

Common words written with 紋 include 波紋 (はもん, ripple; ring on the water; repercussions); 指紋 (しもん, fingerprint); 紋様 (もんよう, pattern; design).

Which kanji sound the same as 紋?

紋 shares a reading with 問 (もん), 文 (もん), 聞 (もん), 門 (もん), among others. Same-sounding kanji are one of the most common sources of confusion in Japanese.

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