Meaning & readings
overcome, kindly, skillfully
On’yomi コク
Kun’yomi か.つ
Nanori かつ、まさる、よし
Origin
This character combines two components to express the idea of overcoming. The top part shows something old or established, while the bottom part represents an older brother or senior figure. Together, they suggest the notion of confronting or standing up to something greater than yourself — whether that's an elder, an obstacle, or a challenge. By extension, this led to the meanings of overcoming difficulties and doing things skillfully or properly. The character essentially pictures the effort required to face down what stands before you.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 10
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1333 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+0514B