Meaning & readings
grope, search, look for
On’yomi タン
Kun’yomi さぐ.る、さが.す
Origin
This character combines a hand on the left (the component for actions done with hands) with a sound hint on the right that suggests the pronunciation. The hand element makes sense because searching and groping are things you do with your hands — you reach out and feel around to find something. The right side provides a phonetic clue for how to pronounce the character rather than adding meaning. Together, the hand plus the sound component created a character that captures the physical action of groping or searching for something by touch.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (探).
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 64
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #930 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+063A2