冗 means “superfluous, idle”

じょう · jou

Also: uselessness

On'yomi (Chinese reading)

ジョウ

JLPT N1 · Taught in secondary school · 4 strokes

The story

A cover (冖) thrown over a stool (几) nobody uses: something extra, sitting idle. 冗 is the superfluous: 冗長 is long-winded, and 冗談, idle talk, is a joke, as in 冗談でしょう, you must be kidding.

Used in 冗談 (joudan, joke) and 冗長 (jouchou, verbose/redundant)

More from Odd & Ordinary

• 汎 general
• 庸 mediocre
• 緻 fine
• 異 different
• 微 slight
• 詳 detailed
• 偏 biased
• 奇 strange
• 駄 worthless
• 朴 simple
• 粗 coarse
• 凡 commonplace

Learn 冗 and more kanji free on Fuji Learning · All kanji

Readings from KANJIDIC2, © EDRDG, CC BY-SA.