漢字Kanji · in Action & Movement
工: craft, construction
Also: katakana e radical (no. 48)
Oracle bone · Shang Bronze · Western Zhou Small seal · Qin Today
Oracle bone and small seal: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Bronze: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Two readings, and the words that use each
コウkou · on'yomi · in compounds
- 工事こうじconstruction work
- 工場こうじょうfactory
- 工学部こうがくぶengineering department
- 人工的なじんこうてきなartificial
- 加工するかこうするprocess [v.t.]
クku · on'yomi
- 大工だいくcarpenter
- 細工するさいくするcraft
- 工夫するくふうするdevise
- 工面するくめんするraise (money)
Also read グ, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Pictogram (象形)
A bladed tool to plow the ground and to mark a border. As an alternative, a carpenter's square; according to the second interpretation, the character is related to the original meaning of 巨.
Source: Wiktionary, 工 (rev. 92678585), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“The base kanji for work and industry, used in everyday words like "construction" (工事) and "factory" (工場).”
Connections
工 gives its sound to
The family reading is コウ (kou). Sound parts: KanjiVG.
Easy to confuse
The difference, side by sideIn ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · gōng
Same form: 工 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 工 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 工 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin gōng most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.