核

See also 覈

Translingual

Etymology

Phono-semantic compound (形聲): semantic 木 (“tree”) + phonetic 亥 – the seeds or nuts of a tree. By extension, the kernel or core generally.

Han character

核 (radical 75 木+6, 10 strokes, cangjie input 木卜女人 (DYVO), four-corner 4098₂)

1. seed, kernel, core, nut
2. atom

References

• KangXi: page 524, character 4
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 14743
• Dae Jaweon: page 912, character 7
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 2, page 1206, character 4
• Unihan data for U+6838

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Cantonese

Hanzi

核 (Yale hat6, wat6)

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Japanese

Kanji

核 (common “Jōyō” kanji)

Readings

• On: かく (kaku)
• Kun: さね (sane)

Compounds

• 原子核 (げんしかく, genshi kaku, “atomic nucleus”)
• 細胞核 (さいぼうかく, saibō kaku, “cell nucleus”)
• 核実験 (かくじっけん, kaku jikken, “nuclear test”)
• 核兵器 (かくへいき, kaku heiki, “nuclear weapons”)

Noun

核 (hiragana かく, romaji kaku)

1. atomic nucleus
2. (algebra) kernel
3. (astronomy) core, nucleus
4. cell nucleus

Synonyms

• (atomic nucleus): 原子核 (げんしかく, genshi kaku)
• (cell nucleus): 細胞核 (さいぼうかく, saibō kaku)

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Korean

Hanja

核 (hangeul 핵, 홀, revised haek, hol, McCune-Reischauer haek, hol, Yale hayk, hol)

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Mandarin

Hanzi

核 (pinyin hé (he2), hú (hu2), Wade-Giles ho², hu²)

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Vietnamese

Han character

核 (hạch, cây, cơi, hột)