字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

darkness, disappear, shade, informal, grow dark, be blinded

On’yomi アン
Kun’yomi くら.い、くら.む、くれ.る

Origin

The character 暗 combines two parts: on the left is 日, which represents the sun or light, and on the right is 音, a sound component that hints at the pronunciation (アン). The left part, 日, establishes the semantic domain — things related to light and brightness. By pairing 日 with a sound hint, the character came to mean the opposite of what the sun represents: darkness, or the absence of light. When light disappears or grows dim, things become 暗い (dark), which is why the character carries meanings like "darkness," "grow dark," and "be blinded."

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

暗 13 strokes

Components

  • 日 radical left
  • 音 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

  • 暗い くらい dark; gloomy
  • 暗に あんに implicitly; indirectly
  • 暗闇 くらやみ darkness; the dark
  • 暗雲 あんうん dark clouds
  • 暗号 あんごう code; password
  • 暗殺 あんさつ assassination
  • 暗示 あんじ hint; suggestion
  • 暗礁 あんしょう reef; sunken rock

Related kanji

Same sound component 音
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
13
Kangxi radical
72
Grade
Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#1040 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 3
Unicode
U+06697