Meaning & readings
perfect, completion, end
On’yomi カン
Origin
This character combines a roof radical at the top, which often appears in characters related to houses or enclosed spaces, with a sound component at the bottom that hints at the pronunciation "kan." The idea of completion or perfection seems to come from the sense of something being fully enclosed or finished under a roof—like a building that is fully constructed and closed off from the outside. Over time, the meaning broadened to represent any kind of completion or perfect state.
Components
- 宀
- 元
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 完結 かんけつ conclusion; completion
- 完遂 かんすい successful execution; accomplishment
- 完成 かんせい completion; perfection
- 完全 かんぜん perfect; complete
- 完走 かんそう finishing (a race); running the whole distance
- 完敗 かんぱい (suffering a) complete defeat; utter defeat
- 完封 かんぷう total blockage; complete shutdown
- 完了 かんりょう completion; conclusion
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 40
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #595 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05B8C