Meaning & readings
punish, penalty, sentence, punishment
On’yomi ケイ
Nanori おさか、ぎょう
Origin
The character 刑 combines two parts to represent punishment. On the left, 开 acts as a sound hint, suggesting the pronunciation "kei." On the right, the component 刂 is a knife or blade radical that signals this character relates to cutting or legal matters—in ancient times, punishment often involved physical harm or execution. Together, the shape conveys the idea of a penalty or sentence imposed through force, with the blade component reinforcing the harsh nature of criminal punishment.
Components
- 开
- 刂
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 6
- Kangxi radical
- 18
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #864 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+05211