Meaning & readings

remorse, regret, be sorry

On’yomi カン
Kun’yomi うら.む

Origin

This character combines a heart radical on the left, which marks it as relating to emotions and inner feelings, with the character on the right that serves as a sound hint for pronunciation. The heart radical signals that this is about an emotional state, while , which means "feeling" or "sensation," both hints at the sound "kan" and reinforces the emotional nature of the character. Together they form a character meaning regret or remorse—a painful feeling held in the heart.

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

16 strokes

Components

  • radical left
  • sound hint right

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

Common words

  • 遺憾 いかん regrettable; unsatisfactory

Reference

Strokes
16
Kangxi radical
61
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1682 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+061BE