Meaning & readings
condition, situation
Origin
The character 況 combines a water radical on the left, which acts as a general classifier for states and conditions, with the character 兄 (meaning "older brother," pronounced kyou) on the right, which serves as a sound hint to indicate how the word should be pronounced. Over time, the water classifier shifted the meaning away from anything involving water and toward the more abstract sense of "condition" or "situation" — the surrounding context or state of things, much like how water takes on the character of its surroundings. The sound component helped readers remember the pronunciation while the radical guided them toward the meaning category.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 氵
- 兄
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 概況 がいきょう outlook; general situation
- 活況 かっきょう activity; briskness
- 近況 きんきょう recent state; present state
- 現況 げんきょう present condition
- 好況 こうきょう prosperous (economic) conditions; favourable conditions
- 市況 しきょう market conditions
- 実況 じっきょう actual state (of things); actual conditions
- 状況 じょうきょう state of affairs; situation
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 85
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #490 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+06CC1