漢字Kanji · in Action & Movement
黒: black
里 and 灬 are drawn in
Oracle bone · Shang Bronze · Western Zhou Small seal · Qin Today
Oracle bone: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Bronze and small seal: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Three readings, and the words that use each
コクkoku · on'yomi · in compounds
- 黒板こくばんblackboard
- 暗黒あんこくdarkness
くろkuro · kun'yomi · on its own
- 黒髪くろかみblack hair
- 白黒しろくろblack and white
- 真っ黒なまっくろなpitch black
くろいkuroi · kun'yomi
- 黒いくろいblack
Also read くろずむ, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Pictogram (象形)
Oracle bone form uncertain, perhaps the element in 𦰩 / 堇 without 口. Bronze inscriptions added dots to a prominent head, usually read as facial tattoos 墨刑.
Source: Wiktionary, 黑 (rev. 93430111), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“The base kanji for the darkest part of the spectrum, capturing the pure essence of soot, ink, and deep shadows.”
Connections
Also read コク
10 kanji share this on'yomiIn ChineseA Japanese form · Chinese writes 黑 · hēi
黒 is a Japanese simplification. Chinese writes 黑 in both simplified and traditional script.
- Simplified
- 黑 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 黑 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin hēi most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.