Meaning & readings
spicy, bitter, hot, acrid
On’yomi シン
Kun’yomi から.い、つら.い、-づら.い、かのと
Origin
This character combines the image of a person standing upright (立) with a cross or mark (十) beneath them. The cross is thought to represent suffering or hardship, so the full picture shows a person marked or troubled by difficulty. Over time, this visual idea expanded to include the sharp, uncomfortable sensation of spicy or bitter food—the kind of sensation that makes you wince, just as hardship troubles a person. The character's meanings of spicy, bitter, and acrid all capture that sense of something harsh or unpleasant striking the senses.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 160
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1607 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+08F9B