Meaning & readings
sultry, hot, summer heat
On’yomi ショ
Kun’yomi あつ.い
Origin
The character 暑 combines the sun radical 日 at the top with 者 at the bottom. The sun component directly represents the source of heat and establishes the meaning around warmth and heat. The 者 component at the bottom serves as a sound hint, suggesting how the character should be pronounced rather than adding to the meaning. Together, the image of the sun plus this phonetic guide created a character that specifically refers to intense summer heat and sultry weather.
Common words
- 酷暑 こくしょ intense heat; severe heat
- 残暑 ざんしょ late summer heat; lingering summer heat
- 暑い あつい hot; warm
- 暑さ あつさ heat (of the weather); hotness
- 暑中 しょちゅう height of summer; high summer
- 避暑 ひしょ escaping the summer heat; going somewhere cooler during the summer
- 猛暑 もうしょ heat wave; fierce heat
- 蒸し暑い むしあつい humid; sultry
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 12
- Kangxi radical
- 72
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1442 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+06691