Meaning & readings
laugh
On’yomi ショウ
Kun’yomi わら.う、え.む
Nanori えみ
Origin
The character 笑 combines bamboo (竹) on top with the component 夭, which originally depicted a person bending or doubling over. Together, these parts create an image of someone bending like bamboo in the wind — the natural motion of laughter and joy. The bamboo adds a sense of flexibility and gentle movement, while the lower component shows the physical posture of someone laughing. Over time, this visual idea of bending and movement became associated with the act of laughing and smiling.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Components
- 竹
- 夭
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 10
- Kangxi radical
- 118
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #913 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+07B11