励 – encourage, be diligent, inspire

7 strokesJōyō (secondary school)#1254 in newspaper frequencyN1 vocabulary

The kanji 励 means encourage, be diligent, inspire. Its on’yomi (Chinese-derived reading) is レイ (rei); its kun’yomi (native Japanese reading) is はげ.む、はげ.ます (hagemu, hagemasu). It is written with 7 strokes, under radical 力 (no. 19).

Stroke order

Stroke order from KanjiVG. Practise others with the stroke order lookup.

Readings

Type	Reading	Romaji
On’yomi	レイ	rei
Kun’yomi	はげ.む	hagemu
Kun’yomi	はげ.ます	hagemasu

A dot separates the kanji’s part from the okurigana (kana written after it), e.g. まな.ぶ → 学ぶ.

Radical and components

Radical: 力 (Kangxi radical 19). Components: 斤・力・厂.

Words using 励

激励げきれいencouragement奨励しょうれいencouragement励むはげむto work hard励ますはげますto encourage

Example sentences

あなたの激励がなかったら、この計画は諦めていたでしょうね。

Without your encouragement, I should have given up the plan.

Tatoeba #233365

人々はフットボールをするように奨励さえされたのです。

People were even encouraged to play football.

Tatoeba #144136

今まで以上にいっそう勉強に励みなさい。

You should study even more than before.

Tatoeba #172576

Kanji with the same radical

力動務加勝勢助労効努募勤功勉勧勇

Sources: KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0), KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0), Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). About the data.