字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

mellow, ripen, mature, acquire skill

On’yomi ジュク
Kun’yomi う.れる

Origin

The character combines a sound hint with a fire radical at the bottom. The top component "孰" (pronounced similarly to the character's on'yomi reading) tells you roughly how to say the character, while the fire radical at the bottom indicates the meaning — heat causes food to ripen and cook. Together, the picture is of heat transforming raw ingredients into something mature or fully cooked, which naturally extended to mean becoming skilled or experienced.

熟 15 strokes

Components

  • 孰 sound hint top
  • 灬 radical bottom

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

Common words

  • 円熟 えんじゅく ripeness; mellowness
  • 熟語 じゅくご kanji compound
  • 熟睡 じゅくすい deep sleep; sound sleep
  • 熟知 じゅくち being familiar with; having a thorough knowledge of
  • 熟練 じゅくれん skill; expertise
  • 成熟 せいじゅく maturity; ripeness
  • 早熟 そうじゅく precocity; early ripening
  • 半熟 はんじゅく half-cooked; half-done

Related kanji

Same sound component 孰
Same radical

Easily confused with

These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.

Reference

Strokes
15
Kangxi radical
86
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#1415 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+0719F