保

Translingual

Stroke order

Etymology

Ideogrammic compound (會意): 亻 (“person”) + 呆 (“baby”) – a person (mother) protecting her child.

Han character

保 (radical 9 人+7, 9 strokes, cangjie input 人口木 (ORD), four-corner 2629₄)

1. protect, safeguard, defend, care

Descendants

• ほ
• ホ

References

• KangXi: page 105, character 17
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 702
• Dae Jaweon: page 222, character 6
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 1, page 160, character 4
• Unihan data for U+4FDD

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Cantonese

Hanzi

保 (Yale bou2)

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Japanese

Kanji

保 (grade 5 “Kyōiku” kanji)

Readings

• On: ほ (ho), ほう (hō)
• Kun: たもつ (tamotsu), やすんじる (yasunjiru)

Compounds

保育 (ほいく, hoiku) 保険 (ほけん, hoken) 保健 (ほけん, hoken) 保護 (ほご, hogo)

保守 (ほしゅ, hoshu) 保障 (ほしょう, hoshō) 保証 (ほしょう, hoshō) 保身 (ほしん, hoshin)

保全 (ほぜん, hozen) 保存 (ほぞん, hozon) 保養 (ほよう, hoyō) 保有 (ほゆう, hoyū)

Proper noun

保 (hiragana たもつ, romaji Tamotsu)

1. A male given name

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Korean

Hanja

保 (hangeul 보, revised bo, McCune-Reischauer po)

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Mandarin

Hanzi

保 (pinyin bǎo (bao3), Wade-Giles pao³)

Compounds

• 保險
• 保護
• 保持

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Vietnamese

Han character

保 (bảo, bầu, bửu)