柳
柳 — Willow
willow
On’yomiリュウ (ryuu)
Kun’yomiやなぎ (yanagi)
Stroke order (9 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 柳
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 柳 | やなぎ yanagi | willow (any tree of genus Salix); weeping willow (Salix babylonica) |
| 川柳 | せんりゅう senryuu | senryū; comic haiku; humorous seventeen-mora poem |
| 青柳 | あおやぎ aoyagi | green willow (i.e. one that has budded); meat of the trough shell (Mactra chinensis) |
| 花柳 | かりゅう karyuu | red-light district |
| 花柳界 | かりゅうかい karyuukai | red-light district; pleasure quarters; world of the geisha |
| 柳刃包丁 | やなぎばぼうちょう yanagibabouchou | kitchen knife for sashimi |
Study notes
柳 is a JLPT N1 kanji written with 9 strokes. It is taught at secondary-school level in Japan. Ranked #1169 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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