Meaning & readings

scroll, volume, book, part, roll up, wind up, tie, coil, counter for texts (or book scrolls)

On’yomi カン、ケン
Kun’yomi ま.く、まき、ま.き

Origin

This character combines a sound hint at the top with a meaning component below. The top part provides a rough pronunciation guide for how to say the character aloud. The bottom part, the radical (self or coil), visually suggests something that winds or loops around itself—like a scroll being rolled up or a coil of rope. Together, the character pictures that curling, rolling action while the sound component anchors how speakers should pronounce the word for it.

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

9 strokes

Components

  • 𠔉 sound hint top
  • radical bottom

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 圧巻 あっかん highlight; best part
  • 絵巻 えまき picture scroll
  • 巻く まく to wind; to coil
  • 巻末 かんまつ end of a book
  • 葉巻 はまき cigar
  • 席巻 せっけん sweeping (over, across); conquering
  • 竜巻 たつまき tornado; whirlwind
  • 鉢巻 はちまき headband

Reference

Strokes
9
Kangxi radical
49
Grade
Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#944 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+05DFB