Meaning & readings
black
On’yomi コク
Kun’yomi くろ、くろ.ずむ、くろ.い
Origin
The character combines two visual ideas to represent "black." The top component 里 originally depicted a frame or enclosed space, while the bottom component 灬 (four dots) represents fire or heat. When something is heated over fire until it becomes charred or darkened, it turns black — this combination of fire with an object shows how black color is created through burning or scorching. Over time, the character became the standard way to write the word for black in Japanese and Chinese.
Components
- 里
- 灬
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 203
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #573 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+09ED2