字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

ditch, moat, canal

On’yomi クツ
Kun’yomi ほり
Nanori ほっ

Origin

This kanji combines earth (土) on the left, which classifies it as something related to ground or land, with a sound hint on the right (屈) that suggests roughly how to pronounce it. The earth radical makes sense because a ditch or moat is a channel dug into the ground. The right component doesn't mean anything about ditches — it's just there to tell readers this character sounds similar to "kutsu" or "hori," helping distinguish it from other earth-related characters.

堀 11 strokes

Components

  • 土 radical left
  • 屈 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

  • 外堀 そとぼり outer moat (of a castle)
  • 堀川 ほりかわ canal
  • 内堀 うちぼり inner moat; moat within the castle walls
  • 堀江 ほりえ canal
  • 釣り堀 つりぼり fish pond (artificially stocked); fishing pond

Related kanji

Same sound component 屈
Same radical

Easily confused with

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

Reference

Strokes
11
Kangxi radical
32
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1285 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+05800