Meaning & readings
building, mansion, large building, palace
Origin
The left side, a food radical, originally signified a place where people gather to eat and stay together. The right component 官 serves as a sound hint, telling you roughly how to pronounce the character (kan). Together, these parts combine to create a character meaning a large building or mansion — a substantial structure where many people would come together, likely for dining, lodging, or official purposes. Over time, the meaning expanded to cover grand buildings and palaces more broadly.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 飠
- 官
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 開館 かいかん opening (for that day's business; of a library, museum, cinema, etc.)
- 館長 かんちょう superintendent; director
- 公館 こうかん official residence
- 別館 べっかん annex (to a building); annexe
- 本館 ほんかん main building (as opposed to an annex, outbuilding, etc.)
- 旅館 りょかん ryokan; traditional Japanese inn
- 会館 かいかん meeting hall; assembly hall
- 館内 かんない inside a library, museum, cinema, etc.; on the premises
Reference
- Strokes
- 16
- Kangxi radical
- 184
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #613 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+09928