Onyomi: カン, ケン · Kunyomi: いぬい, かわ.かす, かわ.く, ひ.る, ほ.す · Meanings: dessicate, drink up, drought, dry, emperor, heaven
Kanji for dessicate, drink up, drought, dry, emperor
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乾 is formed from 日 on the left and 乞 on the right. 日 represents the sun, while 乞 originally shows a person lowering themselves, suggesting lack or emptiness. Together, they show something losing moisture under the sun and becoming empty of water. From this structure, 乾 came to mean dry.
乾 shows the sun removing moisture, meaning dry.
Think of the sun (日) shining down and taking away all the moisture, leaving something empty and dried out (乞). When water is gone and everything feels dry, that condition is 乾.
| Word | Reading | Meaning | Meta |
|---|---|---|---|
| 乾 | けん | qian (one of the trigrams of the I Ching: heaven, northwest) | Noun |
| 干し | ほし | drying, dried | JLPT-N1 Noun, Noun, used as a prefix |
| 戌亥 | いぬい | northwest | Noun |
| 乾燥 | かんそう | dryness, aridity, drying (e.g. clothes), dehydration, desiccation | common JLPT-N2 Noun, Suru verb, Transitive verb, Intransitive verb |
| 乾杯 | かんぱい | cheers, bottoms-up, prosit | common JLPT-N2 |
| 乾く | かわく | to get dry | common JLPT-N4 Godan verb with 'ku' ending, Intransitive verb |
| 干す | ほす | to air, to dry, to desiccate | common JLPT-N2 Godan verb with 'su' ending, Transitive verb |
| 乾電池 | かんでんち | dry cell battery | common JLPT-N2 Noun |
| 乾かす | かわかす | to dry (clothes, etc.), to desiccate | common JLPT-N2 Godan verb with 'su' ending, Transitive verb |
| 乾季 | かんき | dry season | common Noun |