Meaning & readings
drama, play
Origin
The character 劇 combines two parts: the left component 豦 serves as a sound hint suggesting the pronunciation ゲキ, while the right component 刂 is a knife or blade radical that indicates this character relates to cutting or division. In the context of performance and theater, the "cutting" sense evolved to mean a dramatic work that is sharply divided into scenes or acts. The overall character thus came to represent drama or plays, which are characterized by their sharp divisions and intense emotional impacts, much like a blade cuts decisively.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 豦
- 刂
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 15
- Kangxi radical
- 18
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #662 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05287