懐 (KAI, natsu(kashii), futokoro): The primary meaning listed in Halpern is “bosom”! In Breen, it’s “pocket”!
Other meanings include the following: “feelings; heart, breast; to yearn, miss someone, become attached to.”
The radical
means “heart” (and is known as risshinben). The remainder of the kanji means “to carry in the sleeve.” Henshall says that in both Chinese and Japanese, there’s a conceptual overlap between “sleeve” (or “pocket,” in the case of Western clothes) and “bosom,” as both refer loosely to the part of a person that carries things. In that way, 懐 came to mean “the feeling carried in one’s bosom.” Although I can imagine carrying a great many kinds of feelings there, Henshall says this feeling is one of yearning.
We once saw this kanji in the following word:
追懐 (tsuikai: recollection, reminiscence, remembrance)
to remember the dead + to miss someoneSome other 懐 terms make use of its kun-yomi forms:
昔を懐かしむ (mukashi o natsukashimu: to view the past with nostalgia) former times + to long for
内懐 (uchibutokoro: inside pocket, bosom, one’s real intention) inside + bosom, heart
Uchibutokoro sounds like the sort of thing you say when tickling a little kid.
