The kanji 鳴 generally conveys the idea of "to chirp," "to sing," "to ring," or "to make a sound." It implies the production of a sound, particularly a natural sound made by animals or objects. The sound is often a distinctive call, cry, or noise.

・On-yomi (音読み): me i ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): 鳴く (naku)

⚫︎ 鳥が鳴いている。 Translation: The bird is chirping. ⚫︎ 警報が鳴った。 Translation: The alarm went off. ⚫︎ 鐘の音が鳴り響く。 Translation: The sound of the bell echoes.

The kanji 鳴 is a 形声文字 (keisei moji), a phono-semantic compound. It is formed from two parts: ⚫︎ The phonetic component is 鳥 (tori), meaning "bird." ⚫︎ The semantic component is 口 (kuchi), meaning "mouth." The combination suggests a bird opening its mouth to make a sound. The character later became generalized to represent any sound production, not just by birds.