Stroke order is not decoration — it determines how the character looks handwritten and how dictionaries index it.
Almost every kanji is built from a small set of reusable parts. Learn the parts once and you stop memorising thousands of unrelated shapes.
The radical is the part a paper dictionary files a kanji under, and it usually hints at meaning. 蝋 is filed under 虫 (insect) — radical number 142 of the 214 in the Kangxi system.
Three quick games built from this character's real data. Your streak is kept in this browser.
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.
Japanese names use readings that appear nowhere else in the language. These are 蝋's — the reason personal and place names are so hard to read even for native speakers.
Kanji Duel pits 蝋 and 3,000 others head to head. One life. How long can you last?
蝋 means Wax.
蝋 is read on'yomi (Chinese-derived) ろう; kun'yomi (native Japanese) みつろう、ろうそく.
蝋 is written with 14 strokes. The animated diagram on this page shows the correct order.
The radical of 蝋 is 虫 (insect), radical number 142 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.
蝋 is built from 虫 (insect) and 鼡 (rat). Learning kanji as combinations of a few hundred reusable components is far more efficient than memorising each character as a separate shape.
Common words written with 蝋 include 蝋燭 (ろうそく, candle); 生蝋 (キロー, crude Japan wax); 木蝋 (モクロー, vegetable wax, Japan wax, sumac wax).
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