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Villain

On’yomiきょう
MeaningsVillain, Evil, Bad Luck, Disaster
JLPT N1 4 strokes #1631 most common Secondary school Radical open box
書き順 · Stroke order

How to write 凶

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

4 strokes
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分解 · What it is made of

The parts of 凶

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 凶

Radical 17 of 214
Open box

The radical is the part a paper dictionary files a kanji under, and it usually hints at meaning. 凶 is filed under (open box) — radical number 17 of the 214 in the Kangxi system.

Other kanji built on 凵

練習 · Practice

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Villain きょう
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熟語 · In real words

Words that use 凶

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.

凶作 きょうさく bad harvest; poor crop
凶悪 きょうあく atrocious; heinous; fiendish
元凶 げんきょう ringleader; main culprit; main cause
凶器 きょうき dangerous weapon; lethal weapon; deadly weapon
凶暴 きょうぼう ferocious; brutal; atrocious
大凶 だいきょう terrible luck (esp. on an omikuji slip); very bad luck
凶弾 きょうだん assassin's bullet
凶日 キョージツ unlucky day
凶人 キョージン scoundrel, ruffian, villain
凶年 キョーネン bad year, bad harvest
同音 · Sound-alikes

Kanji that sound like 凶

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

画数 · 4 strokes

Other 4-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

凶 is the 1631st 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 凶

What does the kanji 凶 mean?

凶 means Villain, Evil, Bad Luck, Disaster. It is the 1631st most common kanji in written Japanese.

How do you read the kanji 凶?

凶 is read on'yomi (Chinese-derived) きょう.

How many strokes does 凶 have?

凶 is written with 4 strokes. The animated diagram on this page shows the correct order.

What level is the kanji 凶?

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

What is the radical of 凶?

The radical of 凶 is 凵 (open box), radical number 17 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 凶 made of?

凶 is built from 乂 (mow) and 凵 (open box enclosure). 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 凶?

Common words written with 凶 include 凶作 (きょうさく, bad harvest; poor crop); 凶悪 (きょうあく, atrocious; heinous; fiendish); 元凶 (げんきょう, ringleader; main culprit; main cause).

Which kanji sound the same as 凶?

凶 shares a reading with 京 (きょう), 経 (きょう), 強 (きょう), 協 (きょう), 教 (きょう), among others. Same-sounding kanji are one of the most common sources of confusion in Japanese.

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