Chinese Character Wiki
看

kàn, kān

look

Phonosemantic compound. 目 represents the meaning and 倝 represents the sound.

Components
倝 sound,remnant component

倝  Sound Remnant component

gàn

  

sunrise

目 meaning component

目  Meaning component

mù

  

eye

Evolution

看 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
看 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
看 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

看  

kàn

look, see; examine, scrutinize; to see; to look at; to read; to visit; to call on; to consider; to regard as; to treat (an illness); to depend on; to feel (that); (after verb) to give it a try; Watch out! (for a danger)

看  

kān

to look after; to take care of; to watch; to guard

Most common words with 看
Freq.
Word
Meaning

看

to see

看看

to examine

看见

to see

看来

apparently

看上去

it would appear

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*kʰˤa[r]

khan

kān

to watch, guard

*[kʰ]ˤa[r]-s

khanH

kàn

gaze at


Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 99.9359% of movies

35th most common character in movies

76th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+770B

Shuowen

“看，睎也。从手下目。，看或从倝。”


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