Meaning & readings
examination, investigate
Origin
This character combines the wood radical on the left, which suggests something made of wood or a wooden tool, with a sound component on the right that hints at the pronunciation "ken." The wooden element likely refers to the wooden sticks or tallies that were historically used to examine, count, or verify things—a way of checking or inspecting. Over time, the meaning broadened from the physical act of checking with a wooden tool to the more general sense of examining or investigating anything.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 木
- 㑒
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 検診 けんしん medical examination (for a specific condition or disease); health screening
- 検疫 けんえき quarantine; medical inspection
- 検閲 けんえつ censorship
- 検挙 けんきょ arrest; roundup
- 検査 けんさ inspection (e.g. customs, factory); examination
- 検索 けんさく looking up (e.g. a word in a dictionary); search (e.g. on the Internet)
- 検察 けんさつ criminal investigation; prosecution
- 検事 けんじ public prosecutor
Reference
- Strokes
- 12
- Kangxi radical
- 75
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #290 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+0691C