Meaning & readings
oversee, official, govt office, rule, administer
Origin
This character appears to combine the idea of watching or observing with authority. The character shows a person (the left element) looking down into a container or vessel (the right side), which originally meant to inspect or examine carefully. Over time, this sense of close inspection and watchfulness grew into the broader meanings of overseeing, governing, and administering. The image of someone peering into something to check its contents captures the essence of supervision and official inspection that the character still conveys today.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (監).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 15
- Kangxi radical
- 108
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #408 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+076E3