字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

angry, be offended

On’yomi ド、ヌ
Kun’yomi いか.る、おこ.る

Origin

The character shows a heart or feeling (the component at the bottom) combined with a sound hint at the top that helps indicate how the character is pronounced. The heart component makes sense for an emotion like anger, since the ancient Chinese viewed the heart as the seat of emotions and feelings. The upper component is there mainly to suggest the sound, not to add to the meaning. Together, the combination of the emotional heart with this phonetic guide created a character that expresses the intense, passionate feeling of anger or being offended.

怒 9 strokes

Components

  • 奴 sound hint top
  • 心 radical bottom

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

Common words

  • 激怒 げきど rage; fury
  • 怒り いかり anger; rage
  • 怒る おこる to get angry; to get mad
  • 怒気 どき anger; wrath
  • 怒号 どごう angry roar; bellow
  • 怒涛 どとう surging waves; raging billows
  • 怒鳴る どなる to shout (in anger); to yell
  • 喜怒哀楽 きどあいらく human emotions (joy, anger, grief and pleasure); feelings

Related kanji

Same sound component 奴
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
9
Kangxi radical
61
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1221 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+06012