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."
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 13
- Kangxi radical
- 72
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1040 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+06697