Meaning & readings
melancholy, grieve, lament, be anxious, sad, unhappy
Origin
The character 憂 appears to combine a heart component with additional elements above it to create a visual picture of emotional distress. The heart (心) forms the base, representing the seat of emotions in East Asian philosophy. The upper strokes seem to show something weighing down or pressing upon that heart—much like sadness or worry bears down on a person's spirit. Over time, this image of a burdened heart became the standard way to write the word for melancholy, grief, and anxiety. The character's form directly mirrors the feeling it describes: emotions heavy enough to weigh down the heart.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (憂).
Common words
- 憂い うれい sorrow; grief
- 憂国 ゆうこく patriotic concern for the future of one's country
- 憂慮 ゆうりょ anxiety; concern
- 憂鬱 ゆううつ depression; melancholy
- 憂き目 うきめ bitter experience; misery
- 憂える うれえる to worry about; to be anxious about
- 一喜一憂 いっきいちゆう alternating between happiness and anxiety; swinging between joy and sorrow
Reference
- Strokes
- 15
- Kangxi radical
- 61
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1625 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+06182