字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

burn, blaze, glow

On’yomi ネン
Kun’yomi も.える、も.やす、も.す

Origin

This character combines fire (火) on the left, which directly shows the meaning of burning, with the component 然 on the right, which serves as a sound hint rather than adding to the meaning. The 然 component suggests roughly how to pronounce the character (ネン), without itself contributing a separate sense. Together, the fire radical anchors the visual and semantic core, while 然 acts as a phonetic guide to help readers know what sound to attach to this burning concept.

燃 16 strokes

Components

  • 火 radical left
  • 然 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

  • 再燃 さいねん recurrence; revival
  • 燃焼 ねんしょう burning; combustion
  • 燃費 ねんぴ fuel consumption; gas mileage
  • 燃料 ねんりょう fuel
  • 可燃性 かねんせい combustibility; inflammability
  • 可燃物 かねんぶつ combustibles; inflammables
  • 核燃料 かくねんりょう nuclear fuel
  • 燃える もえる to burn; to get fired up

Related kanji

Same sound component 然
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
16
Kangxi radical
86
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#948 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+071C3