上

Meaning in English

on / above

Stroke order

Animated kanji stroke order

上

Sentence

Related sentences

N3 彼は日本に十年住んでいるから日本語が上手なわけだ Kare wa Nihon ni juunen sunde iru kara nihongo ga jouzu na wake da He has lived in Japan for ten years so no wonder his Japanese is good N3 最近は物価が上がるばかりで生活が大変になってきた Saikin wa bukka ga agaru bakari de seikatsu ga taihen ni natte kita Recently prices keep rising and life became difficult N3 読みかけの本を机の上に置いたまま出かけた Yomikake no hon o tsukue no ue ni oita mama dekaketa I left leaving the book I was reading on the desk N3 彼は初心者にしてはかなり上手だと思う Kare wa shoshinsha ni shite wa kanari jouzu da to omou For a beginner he is very good N3 簡単どころか想像以上に難しかった Kantan dokoro ka souzou ijou ni muzukashikatta Far from easy it was harder than expected N3 彼は毎日練習しているから上手になるに違いない Kare wa mainichi renshuu shite iru kara jouzu ni naru ni chigai nai Since he practices every day he will surely get better N4 毎日練習すれば、上手になります。 Mainichi renshuu sureba, jouzu ni narimasu. If you practice every day, you will get better. N4 日本語を上手になるために毎日勉強しています。 Nihongo o jouzu ni naru tame ni mainichi benkyou shiteimasu. I study every day to improve my Japanese. N4 まだ始めたばかりなのにかなり上達していて驚いた Mada hajimeta bakari nanoni kanari joutatsu shite ite odoroita Even though just started recently I was surprised at the progress

Dictionary

Word context

What it means

上 means 'above' or 'up'. It denotes a higher position or the top side of something and is used to indicate vertical location, higher status, or priority relative to another item; in everyday English terms think 'on top of', 'higher than', or 'the top/upper part'.

Main meanings

1. On or onto — indicates placement or contact onto a surface rather than merely position above.
2. The upper part or topmost portion of an object or area, used when distinguishing sections.
3. Higher rank, status, or superiority in social or hierarchical contexts.
4. Earlier/first portion of a time period (e.g., the beginning segment of a month).
5. Directional/motion sense in compounds meaning to go up or ascend.

How to use it

Used widely in spoken and written Japanese as a standalone noun/adverb and inside compounds; the reading ue (ue) appears in everyday, casual and polite contexts for spatial relations, while Sino-Japanese readings like jō (jō) appear in formal compounds and technical terms; appears as a prefix/suffix to form words about position, rank, time segments and direction, and is found in honorific expressions and place names with context-dependent nuance.

Variants and close terms

下 (shita) — below, under (antonym)
上位 (jōi) — upper rank, higher position
上部 (jōbu) — upper part, top section
上流 (jōryū) — upstream, higher social/technical position

Composition

上 (ue) is a pictographic character showing a short horizontal stroke positioned above a baseline or mark, visually representing something placed above; the strokes emphasize 'higher' versus 'lower', and the simple composition directly encodes the spatial sense 'up' or 'top'.

Origin

The character was adopted from Chinese characters brought to Japan with the writing system around the 5th–8th centuries; it originally conveyed the simple spatial idea of one thing being higher than another and entered Japanese writing and vocabulary through classical texts and official records, becoming a core character for spatial and abstract relations.

Word class

noun, adverb, prefix (名詞、副詞、接頭辞、漢字)

Word

Related words by kanji and components

N5 上げる ageru raise, lift, increase N5 上着 uwagi coat, jacket

Kanji