# 元 — Origin

Frequency rank 221 / 2,608 in published Japanese.

Frequent enough that you will keep running into it once you read past headlines.

More common than 悪 (Bad), less common than 加 (Add).

- On’yomi: げん、がん
- Kun’yomi: もと
- Radical: 儿 Legs (Kangxi 10)
- Frequency path: Level II of XX
- School grade: 2
- Strokes: 4

The two bare shins straddle a wet hole in the dirt, and every stroke of the character is still coming up out of it, wet at the root and dry higher up.

In words:

- 元気 げんき — health, vitality
- 元 もと — (1) origin,original,(2) former
- 元々 もともと — originally,by nature,from the start

[Study 元](https://app.kanjidrift.com/study?kanji=%E5%85%83)

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