欲 – longing, covetousness, greed

11 strokesTaught in grade 6#902 in newspaper frequencyN5 vocabulary

The kanji 欲 means longing, covetousness, greed, passion, desire, craving. Its on’yomi (Chinese-derived reading) is ヨク (yoku); its kun’yomi (native Japanese reading) is ほっ.する、ほ.しい (hossuru, hoshii). It is written with 11 strokes, under radical 欠 (no. 76).

Stroke order

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

Readings

Type	Reading	Romaji
On’yomi	ヨク	yoku
Kun’yomi	ほっ.する	hossuru
Kun’yomi	ほ.しい	hoshii

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: 欠 (Kangxi radical 76). Components: 欠・口・谷・ハ・个.

Words using 欲

欲しいほしいwanting (to have)食欲しょくよくappetite (for food)欲張りよくばりgreed欲よくgreed意欲いよくwill欲望よくぼうdesire欲深いよくふかいgreedy

Example sentences

最近食欲がないんです。

Recently I have had no appetite.

Tatoeba #170622

持てば持つほど、欲張りになる。

The more you have, the more you want.

Tatoeba #150707

彼は欲の少ない人だ。

He is a man of few wants.

Tatoeba #99167

Kanji with the same radical

次欧歌欠歓欺

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