可 (kè): khan

Meanings

1 khan

Characters

可

kè

khan

Examples

HSK 5

可汗制度在回纥等北方民族中广泛存在。

Kèhán zhìdù zài Huíhé děng běifāng mínzú zhōng guǎngfàn cúnzài.

The khan system existed widely among northern peoples such as the Uyghurs.

HSK 7-9

成吉思汗是蒙古帝国的首位大可汗。

Chéngjísīhán shì Měnggǔ dìguó de shǒuwèi dà kèhán.

Genghis Khan was the first Great Khan of the Mongol Empire.

Tips

register

This reading is essentially a one-compound exception. 可 only surfaces in 可汗 (khan) - a transliteration of the Mongol/Turkic ruler title that needed a flatter syllable than kě. Outside that one word, always read 可.

culture

可汗 shows up in the Ballad of 木兰 - "可汗大点兵" (the Khan musters a great army) - and was used for rulers of the Xiongnu, Rouran, Göktürk and Mongol steppe empires, including 成吉思汗 (Genghis Khan).

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Mouth radical inside the hook - still the indexing radical. The kè reading is a foreign-name reading borrowed phonetically: when transliterating the steppe title "khan" into Chinese, the smoother kè syllable was chosen, but the written form of 可 is identical to the everyday 可.

phonetic

丁 dīng

nail; man (graphic skeleton here)

Same graphic skeleton as in the kě reading - the top stroke and curving hook outline a 丁-shape that frames the mouth below. The kè reading reuses the entire character form unchanged; only the syllable shifts to fit the foreign loanword 可汗.