Meaning & readings
ticket
On’yomi ケン
Origin
This character combines a sound hint with the knife radical. The knife component at the bottom suggests something that cuts or divides, which connects to the original meaning of "券" as a slip or document that can be torn or separated from others. The upper component provides a pronunciation hint for how the character should be read. Over time, the meaning evolved from a physical slip or voucher to the modern sense of a ticket or certificate, but the knife radical remained to show the category of things being represented.
Components
- 𠔉
- 刀
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
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 18
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #583 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05238