Meaning & readings
drought, dry, desiccate, drink up, heaven, emperor
On’yomi カン、ケン
Kun’yomi かわ.く、かわ.かす、ほ.す、ひ.る、いぬい
Origin
This character combines two parts: the left component represents a shield or defensive object, while the right component originally meant "to ask" or "to seek." Together, they suggest the idea of seeking or drawing out moisture—essentially the act of drying something out. Over time, the character came to mean drought and dryness in general, and by extension was used to refer to heaven (the opposite of water) and imperial authority. The exact visual connection has become obscured through centuries of simplified writing, but the compound meaning of "removal" or "extraction" of water remains at the heart of the character's main sense.
Components
- 𠦝
- 乞
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 5
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1453 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+04E7E