美 – beauty, beautiful

9 strokesTaught in grade 3#462 in newspaper frequencyN5 vocabulary

The kanji 美 means beauty, beautiful. Its on’yomi (Chinese-derived reading) is ビ、ミ (bi, mi); its kun’yomi (native Japanese reading) is うつく.しい (utsukushii). It is written with 9 strokes, under radical 羊 (no. 123).

Stroke order

Stroke order from KanjiVG. Practise others with the stroke order lookup.

Readings

Type	Reading	Romaji
On’yomi	ビ	bi
On’yomi	ミ	mi
Kun’yomi	うつく.しい	utsukushii

A dot separates the kanji’s part from the okurigana (kana written after it), e.g. まな.ぶ → 学ぶ.

Radical and components

Radical: 羊 (Kangxi radical 123). Components: 王・大・并・羊.

Words using 美

美味しいおいしいgood(-tasting)美しいうつくしいbeautiful美術館びじゅつかんart museum美人びじんbeautiful woman美容びようbeauty美びbeauty賛美さんびpraise褒美ほうびreward優美ゆうびgrace美術びじゅつart

Example sentences

あなたは美しい蝶々です。

You are a beautiful butterfly.

Tatoeba #231606

このバスは美術館まで行きますか。

Does this bus go to the museum?

Tatoeba #223341

スミス夫人は美人で有名だった。

Mrs. Smith was a famous beauty.

Tatoeba #214215

Kanji with the same radical

義群羊羨

Sources: KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0), KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0), Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). About the data.