苦
Spell out: + =
bitter; hardship; pain; to suffer; to bring suffering to; painstakingly
8 strokes
Dict coverage rank #421 U+82E6
How 苦 is formed
Phono-semantic compound (形声字)
艹 (semantic, “grass”) + 古 (phonetic, gǔ)
How to remember it
suffering · Heisig RSH #229
flower + 古 ancient
Keyword method from Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi.
Phonetic series: characters sharing the sound component 古
Siblings built with the same phonetic component 古 (gǔ) — compare how they read:
| Character | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 古 sound component | gǔ | old, classic, ancient |
| 胡 | hú | recklessly, foolishly; wildly |
| 居 | jū | to live, to reside; to dwell; to sit |
| 故 | gù | reason, cause; happening, instance |
| 固 | gù | to solidify; strength |
| 估 | gū | merchant; to estimate, to guess, to presume |
| 咕 | gū | mumble, mutter, murmur; rumble |
| 鸪 | gū | species of Taiwan pigeon |
| 沽 | gū | to buy and sell; of inferior quality |
| 蛄 | gū | mole cricket |
| 辜 | gū | crime, offense, sin |
| 祜 | hù | blessings, happiness, prosperity |
| 怙 | hù | to rely on; to presume; father (formal) |
| 钴 | gǔ | cobalt; clothes-iron |
| 罟 | gǔ | net, snare; to implicate |
| 诂 | gǔ | explanation; to comment, to explain |
| 骷 | kū | skeleton |
| 嘏 | gǔ | felicity, prosperity; large and strong |
| 轱 | gū | wheel; to revolve, to turn |
Words containing 苦
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 有苦说不出 | yǒu kǔ shuō bu chū | having unspeakable bitter suffering; (often used after 啞巴吃黃連|哑巴吃黄连[ya3 ba5 chi1 huang2 lia… |
| 吃得苦中苦，方为人上人 | chī dé kǔ zhōng kǔ , fāng wéi rén shàng rén | one cannot achieve glory and wealth without having been through trials and tribulations (p… |
| 苦日子 | kǔ rì zi | hard times |
| 苦中作乐 | kǔ zhōng zuò lè | to find joy in sorrows (idiom); to enjoy sth in spite of one's suffering |
| 苦水 | kǔ shuǐ | bitter water (e.g. mineral water containing sulfates); suffering; digestive fluids rising … |
| 苦头 | kǔ tou | sufferings |
| 苦心 | kǔ xīn | painstaking effort; to take a lot of trouble; laborious at pains |
| 苦海 | kǔ hǎi | lit. sea of bitterness; abyss of worldly suffering (Buddhist term); depths of misery |
| 苦行 | kǔ xíng | ascetic practice |
| 苦力 | kǔ lì | bitter work; hard toil; (loanword) coolie, unskilled Chinese laborer in colonial times |
| 苦口 | kǔ kǒu | lit. bitter taste (cf good medicine tastes bitter 良藥苦口|良药苦口); fig. earnestly (of warning, … |
| 苦主 | kǔ zhǔ | (old) the family of the victim in a murder case; (Tw, HK) victim (of a crime, misfortune e… |
| 苦事 | kǔ shì | hard job; arduous task |
| 皮肉之苦 | pí ròu zhī kǔ | physical pain; lit. skin and flesh suffer |
| 苦活儿 | kǔ huó r | erhua variant of 苦活[ku3 huo2] |
| 苦菜花 | Kǔ cài huā | Bitter Herbs, 1958 novel by Feng Deying 馮德英|冯德英[Feng2 De2 ying1], made into a film in 1965 |
| 苦工 | kǔ gōng | hard labor (in penal code); coolie |
| 吃苦头 | chī kǔ tou | to suffer; to suffer for one's actions; to pay dearly; to burn one's fingers |
| 自食苦果 | zì shí kǔ guǒ | see 自食惡果|自食恶果[zi4 shi2 e4 guo3] |
| 倒苦水 | dào kǔ shuǐ | to pour out one's grievances |