Meaning & readings
inflammation, flame, blaze
On’yomi エン
Kun’yomi ほのお
Nanori ぬく
Origin
The character 炎 stacks two pictures of fire on top of each other. A single fire (火) represents a flame, but when you pile two flames together, the image suggests something more intense: a roaring blaze or strong inflammation. The doubling emphasizes heat and intensity, which is why this character means flame, blaze, or the inflammation you'd feel from intense heat. This is a straightforward compound where the meaning grows directly from combining the same element twice.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Common words
- 炎症 えんしょう inflammation; irritation
- 炎上 えんじょう going up in flames; destruction by fire (esp. of a large building)
- 炎天 えんてん blazing heat; scorching sun
- 肝炎 かんえん hepatitis
- 脳炎 のうえん brain inflammation; encephalitis
- 肺炎 はいえん pneumonia
- 火炎瓶 かえんびん Molotov cocktail; petrol bomb
- 中耳炎 ちゅうじえん otitis media; middle-ear infection
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 86
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1242 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+0708E