科 (kē) is a Chinese character meaning “a branch of study”. It is written from 禾 (grain; standing grain) and 斗 (to fight; dipper), side by side, and takes 9 strokes.
Build the character for “branch of study”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
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Structure
禾 + 斗
Left–right structure
Structure from: 说文解字：科，程也。从禾从斗。斗者，量也。现代字形按 hanzi-writer-data 笔画核验（禾5 + 斗4 = 9 笔）
Memory aid
Grain (禾) on the left, a dipper (斗) on the right: you scoop the harvest out dipper by dipper, sorting it into categories. That sorting is what a 科 — a subject, a department — does to knowledge.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
9 strokes
In real words
- 科学kē xuéscience; scientific科 = kē
- 科技kē jìscience and technology科 = kē
Go deeper
All readings
branch of study
a branch of study; a department or section; a family (in biological classification)
学术或业务的分类，如学科、科室；生物分类上的一级。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 科学kē xuéscience; scientific科 = kē
- 科技kē jìscience and technology科 = kē
Origin
An ideographic compound: 禾 is standing grain and 斗 is a measuring dipper. Measuring grain out by the dipper meant sorting it into set amounts — hence the sense of a graded category, and later a branch of study.
Source: 说文解字：科，程也。从禾从斗。斗者，量也。
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 科 mean?
科 (kē) means a branch of study; a department or section; a family (in biological classification).
How do you pronounce 科?
It is pronounced kē.
What parts is 科 made of?
禾 (grain; standing grain) and 斗 (to fight; dipper), side by side. The recorded source is: 说文解字：科，程也。从禾从斗。斗者，量也。现代字形按 hanzi-writer-data 笔画核验（禾5 + 斗4 = 9 笔）. Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 科 have?
9. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 科?
禾. The radical is how the character is filed in a dictionary — it is not the whole story of how the character is built.
What words use 科?
Common ones are 科学 and 科技. The reading of 科 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.