字の旅3,000 years in four forms
Oracle bone · ShangShang · c. 1200 BCE甲2124 (商)
Oracle bone and bronze: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Small seal: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
部首Radical · in Action & Movement
見 to see, watch, observe
みる miru
7 strokesRadical of 7 kanjiPart of 7
Origin · sourced
Ideogrammic compound會意
目 (“eye”) + 卩 (“kneeling person”) – a kneeling human figure with a large eye for a head. Similar but unrelated to 艮.
Built from 目 “eye” + 卩 “kneeling person”
Source: Wiktionary, 見 (rev. 92201717), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“I see you clearly! This radical represents the active, conscious act of looking at the world. While the "eye" radical alone is static, "miru" is dynamic—it’s a person using their legs to reach a viewpoint and their eyes to meticulously observe every detail. When you see it, think of watching, witnessing, and the deep understanding that comes from direct, firsthand observation. It is the radical of the observer, the examiner, and the witness to history.”
Where it sits in a kanji
Indicates the act of seeing or watching, mental understanding (insight), being a parent (watching over ), setting standards (seeing what is right), or specific types of visual examination.
What it grows into
- 規standardキ
夫 + 見
Originally a pictogram (象形): a cross-shaped measuring compass similar to 乂. The protoform also appears as the bottom component in the oracle bone script of 畫.
Pictogram · Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 親parentシン · おや
辛sound + 見
Bronze script: phono-semantic compound (形聲): phonetic 辛 + semantic 見 (“see”).
Phono-semantic compound · Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 視inspectionシ · みる
示sound + 見
Phono-semantic compound · Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Every kanji with 見 as its radical
All 7 kanji