kǎi
verb

Meanings

  1. 1 to open (classical)
  2. 2 joyful; same as 恺 (classical)

Examples

Kǎi zài gǔwén lǐ shì dǎkāi de yìsi.
In old texts the character 'kai' means to open up.

Tips

history
is not used independently in modern Chinese. It is a classical word for 'to open', and by loan also 'joyful' (interchangeable with ). It survives mostly in classical text and personal names, such as the late-Qing scholar 王闿运. The gate radical gives the 'open' sense; supplies the sound.
register
Archaic and literary. Modern Chinese says 打开; appears only in classical quotation and names.

Components

radical
mén
gate; door
(gate) is the indexing radical and contributes meaning: opening a gate, hence 'to open'. The same enclosure houses and .
phonetic
phonetic element
supplies the sound for , with the reading drifting; it is the same phonetic seen in and .

No stroke data for ; the glyph shown is your device font, so component strokes can't be highlighted.

Stroke Order

kǎi