Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements

鬱: gloom, depression

Also: melancholy, luxuriant

N1 (our estimate)29 strokesSecondary schoolYour ink: 白 Not met

木 and 鬯 carry the meaning · 缶, 冖 and 彡 are drawn in

29 strokes
  • Oracle bone · Shang
  • Bronze · Western Zhou
  • Small seal · Qin
  • Today

Oracle bone, bronze and small seal: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Two readings, and the words that use each

ウツutsu · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 鬱うつdepression; low spirits
  • 憂鬱ゆううつdepression; melancholy; dejection

うっするussuru · kun'yomi · on its own

  • 鬱陶しいうっとうしいgloomy (e.g. mood); depressing

Also read ふさぐ, しげる, with no example words in our sources. Words: JMdict, EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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成り立ち

Where it comes from

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Stand before a great, ancient tree and see 木! The vertical line is the sturdy trunk, the top strokes are branches reaching for the sunlight, and the bottom strokes are the roots gripping the earth.”
More in the 木 tree story
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
木

Also built on tree (木)

All 124
冖

Also built on cover (冖)

All 21
彡

Also built on hair-style (彡)

All 13
In ChineseSimplified 郁 · traditional, as in Japanese · yù

Japan keeps the traditional form 鬱; mainland China simplifies it to 郁.

Simplified
郁 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
鬱 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin yù most common reading

Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.

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