Carve, Time

Interesting Fact

Long before clocks became common, people needed other ways to divide the day. In ancient China, 刻 (kè) became associated with a small division of time, connected to the practice of marking or carving divisions. This idea eventually entered Japanese as 刻 (koku), an old unit of time. You can still see this connection in words such as 刻一刻 (kokukoku), meaning “moment by moment.” It gives the kanji a wonderfully literal-feeling history: time was something you could divide into little carved marks.