Origin

The character combines the "earth" or "soil" radical at the bottom, which shows this kanji concerns the ground, with a sound hint at the top that roughly indicates the pronunciation. The top component suggests the character should sound something like "kon." Together, the parts form a character meaning to break ground and clear land for farming — the idea of working with and opening up the earth through human effort.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).