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Burglar

On’yomiぞく
MeaningsBurglar, Rebel, Traitor, Robber
JLPT N1 13 strokes #1987 most common Secondary school Radical shell
書き順 · Stroke order

How to write 賊

Stroke order is not decoration — it determines how the character looks handwritten and how dictionaries index it.

13 strokes
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分解 · What it is made of

The parts of 賊

Almost every kanji is built from a small set of reusable parts. Learn the parts once and you stop memorising thousands of unrelated shapes.

部首 · Radical

The radical of 賊

Radical 154 of 214
Shell

The radical is the part a paper dictionary files a kanji under, and it usually hints at meaning. 賊 is filed under (shell) — radical number 154 of the 214 in the Kangxi system.

Other kanji built on 貝

練習 · Practice

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Burglar ぞく
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熟語 · In real words

Words that use 賊

Kanji are almost never met alone. These are the most common words built from this character, ordered by how often they actually appear in Japanese.

海賊 かいぞく pirate
盗賊 とうぞく thief; robber; burglar
海賊版 かいぞくばん pirated edition; pirated version; bootleg copy
山賊 さんぞく bandit; brigand
烏賊 イカ cuttlefish; squid
国賊 コクゾク traitor (to one's country)
賊子 ゾクシ rebellious child, rebel, traitor
女賊 ニョゾク female bandit, female robber; woman (who distracts men's search for truth)
賊名 ゾクメー (the stigma of) the name of "rebel"
賊軍 ゾクグン rebel army
同音 · Sound-alikes

Kanji that sound like 賊

Japanese has far more kanji than syllables, so one reading is shared by many characters. These are the ones you will confuse with 賊 — learn them together, not separately.

画数 · 13 strokes

Other 13-stroke kanji

Useful when looking a character up by stroke count — and a common source of visual mix-ups.

頻度 · Frequency

Next in the frequency list

賊 is the 1987th most common kanji in written Japanese. Learning in frequency order is the fastest route to reading real text.

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質問 · Questions

About the kanji 賊

What does the kanji 賊 mean?

賊 means Burglar, Rebel, Traitor, Robber. It is the 1987th most common kanji in written Japanese.

How do you read the kanji 賊?

賊 is read on'yomi (Chinese-derived) ぞく.

How many strokes does 賊 have?

賊 is written with 13 strokes. The animated diagram on this page shows the correct order.

What level is the kanji 賊?

It appears at JLPT level N1, and Japanese schoolchildren learn it in secondary school.

What is the radical of 賊?

The radical of 賊 is 貝 (shell), radical number 154 of the 214 Kangxi radicals. The radical is the component a dictionary files the character under, and it usually points at the character's meaning.

What parts is the kanji 賊 made of?

賊 is built from 貝 (shellfish) and 戎 (warrior). Learning kanji as combinations of a few hundred reusable components is far more efficient than memorising each character as a separate shape.

What words use the kanji 賊?

Common words written with 賊 include 海賊 (かいぞく, pirate); 盗賊 (とうぞく, thief; robber; burglar); 海賊版 (かいぞくばん, pirated edition; pirated version; bootleg copy).

Which kanji sound the same as 賊?

賊 shares a reading with 続 (ぞく), 族 (ぞく), 属 (ぞく), 俗 (ぞく), 粟 (ぞく), among others. Same-sounding kanji are one of the most common sources of confusion in Japanese.

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