部
Components

苦 means 'bitter'

Animation / stroke order not available.
CHALLENGE
BUILD
DRAW
MATCH
KEYWORDS
LOG IN to view this kanji's mnemonic
Strokes : 8    Frequency: 466   JLPT: N3    Usefulness: 3    Study set: 3-12    Grade: 3   Intermediate lesson: 25    Beginner lesson: -   Begins 100 words   Used in 194 words   Used in 42 names   Component in 1 kanji (0 Jōyō)
Jōyō (常用)
Common readings
On
   ク
Kun
   くるしい painful   くるしむ to suffer   くるしめる to torment   にがい bitter   にがる to feel bitter
Additional readings
Kun    -ぐるしい
Components
⿱  艹 (艸) grass  古 old  
Explore these components visually on The Kanji Map ⇗
See also
若 young  
Mastery
LOG IN to view kanji mastery data
Flashcards
LOG IN to view your flashcards
Most useful words by reading
In the most useful 10,000 words in Japanese, 苦 is used 12 times, read 3 ways.
Across all words in Japanese, 苦 is used 180 times, read 3 ways (with 2 variations).
Showing:
ク : 125 words FIND ALL
く ろ う 1
troubles; hardships
(click the word to view an additional 2 forms, examples and links)
ク (read as ぐ) : 3 words FIND ALL
き ぐ ろ う 2
noun
worry; care; anxiety
(click the word for examples and links)
にがい : 25 words FIND ALL
に が て 0 に が て 3
1. poor (at); weak (in); not very good (at)
2. dislike (of); difficult to deal with
(click the word for examples and links)
くるしい : 22 words FIND ALL
く る し い 3
1. painful; difficult; agonizing
2. needy; tight (budget); straitened (circumstances)  (see also: 苦しい懐)
(click the word to view an additional 3 meanings, examples and links)
くるしい (read as ぐる) : 5 words FIND ALL
み ぐ る し い 4
unsightly; ugly
(click the word for examples and links)
An additional くる.しむ less common words include 苦 but the reading has not yet been categorized.
Quick links
QUICK SEARCH WORD SEARCH KANJI SEARCH COMPONENT SEARCH Find kanji that refer to 苦
More information
Wiktionary ⇗ | Unicode.org ⇗ | Google Japan ⇗ | Hanziyuan etymology ⇗
Additional data
Henshall: 283 (originally: 264)  Joy o' Kanji : 264  Key to Kanji: 237 

Cascading kanji view

苦
ク   くるしい painful   くるしむ to suffer   くるしめる to torment   にがい bitter   にがる to feel bitter   
Please LOG IN to view this kanji's mnemonic
古
コ   ふるい old   -ふるす to grow old   
Please LOG IN to view this kanji's mnemonic
十
ジュウ   ジッ   と    とお ten   
Please LOG IN to view this kanji's mnemonic
一
イチ   イツ   ひとつ    ひと- one   
丨
stick   
口
コウ   ク   くち mouth   
Please LOG IN to view this kanji's mnemonic
艹
grass   
Problem with this kanji? Question or comment? Please CONTACT US.
Kanshudo is your AI Japanese tutor, and your constant companion on the road to mastery of the Japanese language. To get started learning Japanese, just follow the study recommendations on your Dashboard. You can use Quick search (accessible using the icon at the top of every page) to look up any Japanese word, kanji or grammar point, as well as to find anything on Kanshudo quickly. For an overview, take the tour.
Search results include information from a variety of sources, including Kanshudo (kanji mnemonics, kanji readings, kanji components, vocab and name frequency data, grammar points, examples), JMdict (vocabulary), Tatoeba (examples), Enamdict (names), KanjiVG (kanji animations and stroke order), and Joy o' Kanji (kanji and radical synopses). Translations provided by Google's Neural Machine Translation engine. For more information see credits.
×