The kanji 獄 primarily conveys the concept of "prison," "jail," or "hell." It represents a place of confinement, punishment, and suffering. It can refer to both physical imprisonment and the metaphorical concept of a place of torment, often associated with the afterlife or severe punishment.

・On-yomi (音読み): ゴク (goku) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): None, or rarely used in the standard form.

⚫︎ 監獄 Translation: Prison, jail. ⚫︎ 地獄 Translation: Hell, inferno. ⚫︎ 投獄 Translation: Imprisonment (the act of putting someone in prison).

The kanji 獄 is a 形声文字 (keisei moji), a phono-semantic compound character. ⚫︎ The character combines the radical 犬 (inu, meaning "dog" or "animal") and the phonetic component 言 (gen, meaning "word" or "saying") inside 𤇾. ⚫︎ Originally, the 犬 radical represented a pit or enclosure. ⚫︎ The 言 component likely provided the sound and possibly alluded to the concept of law or judgement. ⚫︎ This combination evolved to represent the place where criminals were kept, a place of confinement, and subsequently, the idea of hell.