酷 – cruel, severe, atrocious

14 strokesJōyō (secondary school)#1596 in newspaper frequencyN1 vocabulary

The kanji 酷 means cruel, severe, atrocious, unjust. Its on’yomi (Chinese-derived reading) is コク (koku); its kun’yomi (native Japanese reading) is ひど.い (hidoi). It is written with 14 strokes, under radical 酉 (no. 164).

Stroke order

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

Readings

Type	Reading	Romaji
On’yomi	コク	koku
Kun’yomi	ひど.い	hidoi

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: 酉 (Kangxi radical 164). Components: ノ・口・土・酉.

Words using 酷

残酷ざんこくcruel冷酷れいこくcruelty

Example sentences

怪物は残酷な微笑みを浮かべた。

The monster's smile was cruel.

Tatoeba #185154

犬を叩くなんて彼は冷酷だ。

It was cruel of him to beat his dog.

Tatoeba #175222

Kanji with the same radical

配酒酸酬酔酢酪醜酌醤

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