Meaning & readings
polish, study of, sharpen
On’yomi ケン
Kun’yomi と.ぐ
Nanori のり
Origin
This character combines stone (石) on the left, which indicates the general category of working with hard materials, with a sound component (开) on the right that hints at the pronunciation. The stone radical makes sense because the character's original meaning was to sharpen or polish stones and tools by grinding them together. Over time, the meaning expanded from this physical action to the more abstract sense of studying or refining knowledge—just as you polish a stone to make it smooth and useful, you polish your mind through study.
Components
- 石
- 开
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 9
- Kangxi radical
- 112
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #336 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+07814