1195/2000

JLPT: N2

School Grade: Junior high school

This character is a combination of 倝 sunrise / dawn, and 乙 the fishhook radical. One proposed origin of 乙 is that it is a pictogram of a developing plant. 倝 represents the morning sun coming out and shining, so with 乙 this creates an image of the sun shining down on plants growing and reaching upwards. This gave 乾 a meaning of “to rise up / to go up.”

Another explanation is that here 乙 is used in its sense of “twisted,” while 倝 is carrying connotations of “straight / undeviating” due to its association with the course of the rising sun. In this case, 乾 originally meant to “straighten something twisted.”

The current meaning of “dry” is thought to be a borrowing.