Sinograph Addenda · Signs

can

Name	can
Reads	kě
Means	can, may; acceptable
Taught in	09 · The art of asking

Where it comes from

A mouth 口 with a hooked stroke beside it — graphically the nail 丁, historically an old sound-carrier (Shuowen reads the hook as the phonetic). The stated sense: what the mouth lets pass — acceptable, can, may. Doubled with 以 it makes the classical modal 可以, “can thereby”. Taught in the asking chapter.

How to remember it

A nail and a mouth: the request is nailed up, the mouth says can.

In the wild

可以為師矣。kě yǐ wéi shī yǐ"…can thereby be a teacher" — the close of Analects 2.11: warm up the old, know the new, and 可以 grants the license

Analects 2.11. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:002:12a · license: attribution.