字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

contain, include, hold in the mouth, bear in mind, understand, cherish

On’yomi ガン
Kun’yomi ふく.む、ふく.める

Origin

This character combines a mouth radical at the bottom, which establishes the general meaning of something involving the mouth or an opening, with a sound component on top that hints at its pronunciation. The mouth component suggests physical containment or holding something inside, which naturally extends to the idea of keeping something in mind or understanding it mentally. Over time, the character's meaning broadened from the literal sense of holding something in the mouth to the more abstract concepts of containing, including, or cherishing ideas and feelings.

含 7 strokes

Components

  • 今 sound hint top
  • 口 radical bottom

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 含み ふくみ implication; hidden meaning
  • 含む ふくむ to contain; to comprise
  • 含蓄 がんちく implication; significance
  • 含有 がんゆう containing (an ingredient, mineral, etc.)
  • 包含 ほうがん inclusion; comprehension
  • 含める ふくめる to include (in a group or scope)

Related kanji

Same sound component 今
Same radical

Easily confused with

These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.

Reference

Strokes
7
Kangxi radical
30
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#466 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+0542B