祖 – ancestor, pioneer, founder

9 strokesTaught in grade 5#1226 in newspaper frequencyN4 vocabulary

The kanji 祖 means ancestor, pioneer, founder. Its on’yomi (Chinese-derived reading) is ソ (so). It is written with 9 strokes, under radical 示 (no. 113).

Stroke order

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

Readings

Type	Reading	Romaji
On’yomi	ソ	so

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: 示 (Kangxi radical 113). Components: 一・目・礼.

Words using 祖

祖母そぼgrandmother祖父そふgrandfather先祖せんぞancestor祖先そせんancestor

Example sentences

私は祖母が大好きです。

I love my grandmother very much.

Tatoeba #155382

我々は祖父の名前を息子に名付けた。

We named my son after my grandfather.

Tatoeba #185710

ある出来事を記念したり先祖の伝説を伝えるために建てられたものであった。

They were erected to commemorate a certain event or to tell an ancestral legend.

Tatoeba #229864

Kanji with the same radical

社示神福票禁祉祭祝礼祈禅禄

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