坎 (kǎn): pit
坎 (kǎn) is a Chinese character meaning “pit.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 土 (semantic) and 欠 (phonetic). It ranks #3021 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).
Etymologically derived, 坎 earth. Its radical form 土 (earth) appears in many related characters such as 土 (tǔ, earth, soil), 地 (dì, earth, ground), 场 (chǎng, field, place).
Definitions
- pit
Etymology & Origin
Stroke Order
Practice writing 坎 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.
Words & Compounds
Common Compounds
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 布坎南 | bù kǎn nán | (surname) Buchanan |
| 坎贝尔proper-noun | kǎn bèi ěr | Campbell (name) |
| 坎坷adjective | kǎn kě | (of a road) bumpy |
| 坎大哈proper-noun | kǎn dà hā | Kandahar (town in Southern Afghanistan) |
| 坎特伯雷 | kǎn tè bó léi | Canterbury |
| 坎儿 | kǎn r | critical juncture |
| 坎肩noun | kǎn jiān | sleeveless jacket (usually cotton) |
| 坎帕拉proper-noun | kǎn pà lā | Kampala, capital of Uganda |
| 阿利坎特proper-noun | ā lì kǎn tè | Alicante |
| 心坎noun | xīn kǎn | bottom of one's heart |
| 坎坷不平 | kǎn kě bù píng | potholed and bumpy road (idiom) |
| 坎特伯雷故事集 | kǎn tè bó léi gù shì jí | The Canterbury Tales, collection of stories by Geoffrey Chaucer 喬叟|乔叟 |
| 坎塔布里亚 | kǎn tǎ bù lǐ yà | Cantabria, Spanish autonomous region, capital Santander 桑坦德 |
| 坎塔布连海 | kǎn tǎ bù lián hǎi | Bay of Biscay (Spanish: Mare Cantabrico) |
| 阿尔坎塔拉 | ā ěr kǎn tǎ lā | Alcántara, municipality in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain |
坎 appears in 40 compound words: 65 as the first character, 18 as the last, and 18 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.
Strongest Collocations
Characters that most frequently co-occur with 坎 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.
Idioms & Chengyu (2)
Example Sentences
坎地改革让农民有了自己的田地。
kǎn dì gǎi gé ràng nóng mín yǒu le zì jǐ de tián dì .
Land reform gave farmers their own fields.
NBA》坎宁安缺阵没关系 活塞打爆勇士夺3连胜锁定...
N B A kǎn nìng ān quē zhèn méi guān xì huó sāi dǎ bào yǒng shì duó 3 lián shèng suǒ dìng . . .
NBA: No Problem Without Cunningham—Pistons Rout Warriors for Third Straight Win, Securing...
...VP榜,亚历山大第一,2-5位是约基奇、坎宁安、文班亚马和杰伦布朗。过去十场净效率...
. . . V P bǎng , yà lì shān dà dì yī , 2 5 wèi shì yuē jī qí , kǎn nìng ān , wén bān yà mǎ hé jié lún bù lǎng . guò qù shí chǎng jìng xiào lǜ . . .
...VP rankings: Alexander is first, followed by Jokić, Cunningham, Wembanyama, and Jalen Brown in spots 2 through 5. Net efficiency over the past ten games...
...职/富邦悍将给离队同意书 台钢宣布“化布坎南为坎南”
. . . zhí fù bāng 悍 jiāng gěi lí duì tóng yì shū tái gāng xuān bù huà bù kǎn nán wéi kǎn nán
... Job/Fubon Titan will give consent to leave the team Taiwan Steel announced that "turning Buchanan into Cannan"
朴赞郁出任坎城影展评审团主席 成影史首位韩籍主席
pǔ zàn yù chū rèn kǎn chéng yǐng zhǎn píng shěn tuán zhǔ xí chéng yǐng shǐ shǒu wèi hán jí zhǔ xí
Park Chan-wook became the chairman of the jury of the Cannes Film Festival, the first Korean chairman in the history of the film
Character Family
Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 土 (earth) component
Homophones — Characters pronounced kǎn
Frequently Asked Questions
What does 坎 (kǎn) mean in Chinese?
What's the difference between 坎 and 软?
How many strokes does 坎 have?
What is the radical of 坎?
What are the components of 坎?
What are common words containing 坎?
What characters sound the same as 坎 (kǎn)?
Is 坎 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Practice writing 坎 with real-time feedback
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