字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

spit, vomit, belch, confess, tell (lies)

On’yomi ト
Kun’yomi は.く、つ.く

Origin

This character combines the mouth radical on the left, which indicates the meaning involves the mouth and speech, with the character for earth on the right, which serves as a sound hint for pronunciation. The mouth radical is used because all the meanings involve something coming out of the mouth—whether it's physically spitting or vomiting, or verbally confessing and telling. The earth component doesn't contribute to the meaning; it's simply there to suggest how the character should be pronounced.

吐 6 strokes

Components

  • 口 radical left
  • 土 sound hint right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 吐く つく to breathe out; to breathe
  • 吐露 とろ expressing one's mind; speaking out
  • 嘔吐 おうと vomiting; emesis
  • 吐き気 はきけ nausea; feeling like throwing up
  • 吐き出す はきだす to vomit; to spit out

Related kanji

Same sound component 土
Same radical

Easily confused with

These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.

Reference

Strokes
6
Kangxi radical
30
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1674 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+05410