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苦

Also worry, hardship, feel bitter, scowl

Readings

On’yomi

  • ク

Kun’yomi

  • くるしい
  • -ぐるしい
  • くるしむ
  • くるしめる
  • にがい
  • にがる
On’yomi and kun’yomi?

On’yomi are readings that came from Chinese, written here in katakana. Kun’yomi are native Japanese readings, written in hiragana. Which one is used depends on the word: kanji in compounds often take an on’yomi, and a kanji standing alone often takes a kun’yomi.

What do the dots mean?

The kana after the dot, shown lighter, is okurigana: it is written in kana after the kanji. For example, the reading い·きる of 生 is written 生きる.

A hyphen means the reading is used as a prefix or suffix, attached to another word.

Stroke order

Strokes from KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Example words

  • 苦(にが)いbitter (taste)
  • 苦言(くげん)candid advice; frank advice; honest opinion
  • 苦手(にがて)poor (at); weak (in); not very good (at)
  • 苦笑(くしょう)bitter smile; wry smile; strained laugh
  • 苦情(くじょう)complaint; troubles; objection
  • 苦心(くしん)pains; hard work; effort
Where do these words come from?

They are common words containing 苦, from JMdict, picked automatically with words made of easier kanji first. They are not graded by JLPT level.

Keep exploring

Same radical. KANJIDIC2 files these kanji under radical 艸 (no. 140), like 苦 (the 8 most common of 59 in the collection).

What is a radical?

Dictionaries file every kanji under one of 214 radicals, a component used for looking it up. A shared radical often hints at a shared theme, but not always, and it says nothing certain about a character’s history. A radical can change shape inside a kanji, as 水 becomes 氵.

Additional detailsSchool grade, frequency, Unicode and sources
School grade
Grade 3 (primary school)
Newspaper frequency
623 of 2,500
Classical radical
艸 no. 140
Unicode
U+82E6

School grade comes from the Japanese school curriculum. Frequency is the rank among the 2,500 most common kanji in newspapers. Neither is a JLPT level.

Sources for this entry