恐 – fear, dread, awe

10 strokesJōyō (secondary school)#878 in newspaper frequencyN3 vocabulary

The kanji 恐 means fear, dread, awe. Its on’yomi (Chinese-derived reading) is キョウ (kyou); its kun’yomi (native Japanese reading) is おそ.れる、おそ.る、おそ.ろしい、こわ.い、こわ.がる (osoreru, osoru, osoroshii, kowai, kowagaru). It is written with 10 strokes, under radical 心 (no. 61).

Stroke order

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

Readings

Type	Reading	Romaji
On’yomi	キョウ	kyou
Kun’yomi	おそ.れる	osoreru
Kun’yomi	おそ.る	osoru
Kun’yomi	おそ.ろしい	osoroshii
Kun’yomi	こわ.い	kowai
Kun’yomi	こわ.がる	kowagaru

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: 心 (Kangxi radical 61). Components: 工・心・丶・几.

Words using 恐

恐怖きょうふfear恐らくおそらくprobably恐れるおそれるto fear恐ろしいおそろしいterrible恐縮きょうしゅくfeeling (much) obliged恐れおそれfear恐れ入るおそれいるto be sorry

Example sentences

私は恐怖で気も狂わんばかりだった。

I almost went crazy with fear.

Tatoeba #157615

大人はしばしば変化を恐れる。

Older people often fear change.

Tatoeba #137475

その嵐の天候は恐ろしかった。

The stormy weather was dreadful.

Tatoeba #206253

Kanji with the same radical

意性思心感情必応急態想念悪憲愛惑

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