字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

laid waste, rough, rude, wild

On’yomi コウ
Kun’yomi あ.らす、あ.れる、あら.い、すさ.ぶ、すさ.む、あ.らし
Nanori ら

Origin

This character pictures a field or plants growing wild and overgrown. The grass radical at the top represents vegetation, while the bottom component serves as a sound hint for pronunciation rather than adding to the meaning. The combination suggests plants spreading untamed across land, capturing the sense of something rough, wild, or laid waste. Over time, the character extended to describe anything in a rough or rude state, not just overgrown fields.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

荒 9 strokes

Components

  • 艹 radical top
  • 亡+川 sound hint bottom

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 荒い あらい rough; wild
  • 荒波 あらなみ raging waves; stormy seas
  • 荒廃 こうはい ruin; destruction
  • 荒木 あらき logs in bark; rough wood
  • 荒野 こうや wasteland; wilderness
  • 荒れ あれ stormy weather; tempest
  • 荒らす あらす to lay waste; to devastate
  • 荒れる あれる to become stormy; to become rough (of the sea)

Related kanji

Same radical

Reference

Strokes
9
Kangxi radical
140
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1099 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+08352