kāng
adjective #4,695

Meanings

  1. 1 healthy; peaceful
  2. 2 abundant

Examples

Zhù nǐ shēntǐ jiànkāng!
Wish you good health!
Xiǎokāng shēnghuó.
A moderately prosperous life.

Tips

usage
mainly appears in 健康 (healthy/health). Also in 小康 (moderately prosperous — a key political term in China), 康复 (to recover). Common surname (e.g., 康熙, Kangxi Emperor).

Components

radical
广 guǎng
shelter; lean-to (radical)
Top-left shelter radical (Kangxi #53) — depicts a roof leaning against a wall. Indexes in the architecture-and-state family with , , . Originally had no roof and was the picture of grain being threshed; the 广 was added later to anchor the meaning to a place of plentiful storage — a peaceful, prosperous home.
phonetic
to follow; subordinate
Inside — graphically the inner component, historically the residue of an older shape showing grain being threshed: a hand holding a stalk with kernels falling away as scattered dots. Modern has converged with the 'subordinate' character but here it is the threshing scene that gives 'plentiful, peaceful, healthy' — the harvest is in, all is well.

Stroke Order

kāng