Checking and examination with 検

檢 combines semantic 木 with phonetic 僉. The wooden sealing label described by Kanjipedia belongs to the traditional account of its original meaning. Kanjipedia identifies 検 as a simplified form and treats the use for examining as a borrowing. Kanjipedia, citing Kadokawa Shinjigen

Earlier evidence complicates a simple sealing origin. CUHK’s database records 檢 on a spear of King Xi of Yan from the late Warring States period. It tentatively interprets the word as the sharp part of a spear and suggests that 木 relates to the wooden shaft. This is a proposed interpretation of an attested inscription. The entry also supplies small-seal and bamboo or silk manuscript forms. CUHK Multi-function Chinese Character Database

CUHK quotes the Shuowen analysis as 木 with phonetic 僉 and explains the document sense through Duan Yucai’s commentary on marking the outside of a document container. This provides a textual tradition for the document-related meaning without proving it was the earliest use. CUHK

Heibonsha’s Jitsu instead connects sealing and marking with standards or models, then with examining matters by those standards and restraining oneself. This is an attributed semantic account, distinct from Kanjipedia’s borrowing explanation. The sources support the components more firmly than a single chronology of meanings. Jitsu, 検