The kanji 劾 primarily conveys the meaning of "to impeach," "to accuse," or "to investigate." It implies a formal process of examining and judging someone's actions, often with the intention of holding them accountable. It also suggests scrutinizing something critically.

・On-yomi (音読み): ガイ (gai) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): None, or rarely used in the Kun-yomi context.

⚫︎ 弾劾劾 (dankai) Translation: Impeachment; to impeach. ⚫︎ 糾劾 (kyūketsu) Translation: To investigate and accuse. ⚫︎ 劾問 (gaimon) Translation: To question/interrogate (a suspect).

The kanji 劾 is a 形声文字 (keisei moji), a phono-semantic compound character. The character is composed of the radical 刂 (りっとう, katana, meaning "knife" or "sword") on the left and 亥 (い, i, the eleventh of the twelve Earthly Branches) on the right as a phonetic component. The radical 刂 suggests the idea of cutting or separating, emphasizing the action of judging or separating right from wrong. The phonetic component 亥 (which originally represented a pig and later became associated with "time" and "movement") contributes the sound element. Together, they create a meaning related to scrutinizing and investigating something formally and carefully.