暗
暗 — Darkness
darkness, disappear, shade, informal, grow dark, be blinded
On’yomiアン (an)
Kun’yomiくらい (kurai)
Kun’yomiくらむ (kuramu)
Kun’yomiくれる (kureru)
Stroke order (13 strokes)
Watch the strokes draw themselves in the correct order — numbers mark where each stroke starts. Diagram from KanjiVG (CC BY-SA).
Common words using 暗
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 暗殺 | あんさつ ansatsu | assassination |
| 真っ暗 | まっくら makkura | pitch-dark; pitch-black; completely dark |
| 明暗 | めいあん meian | light and darkness; light and shade |
| 暗に | あんに anni | implicitly; indirectly; tacitly |
| 暗礁 | あんしょう anshou | reef; sunken rock; unforeseen difficulty |
| 暗号 | あんごう angou | code; password; cipher |
Study notes
暗 is a JLPT N3 kanji written with 13 strokes. It is taught in Japanese elementary school (grade 3), so native children learn it early — a good sign it appears everywhere. Ranked #1040 of the 2,500 most frequent kanji in newspapers. On’yomi (音読み) are Chinese-derived readings mostly used in compound words; kun’yomi (訓読み) are native Japanese readings, with any highlighted part written in hiragana after the kanji (okurigana).
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