Why the kanji for cry is water + standing (泣)

The everyday Japanese word for crying is 泣く (naku), and its kanji, 泣, has two parts: 氵, water, on the left and 立, to stand, on the right. Picture someone standing quite still while the tears run down their face. It’s a good way to remember the kanji, even though 立 is really there for a different reason.

What the kanji say

氵 is the water radical. It’s 水 (mizu), water, squeezed into three short strokes so it fits on the left of a kanji. Japanese calls it さんずい (sanzui), from 三, three, and 水, water. It marks kanji for anything wet: 海 (umi), sea, 汗 (ase), sweat, and 涙 (namida), tears.

立 means to stand, as in 立つ (tatsu). It began as a drawing of a person with arms spread wide, standing on the ground. The long bottom stroke is the ground.

Where it really comes from

泣 is a phono-semantic compound, the most common kind of kanji: one part points to the meaning and the other to the sound. Here the water gives the meaning, and 立 gives the sound. In Old Chinese the two words sounded similar, so 立 made a natural sound hint. Nobody chose it because people stand up to cry.

Still, the picture of a quiet, standing figure fits better than you might expect. The Shuowen Jiezi, a Chinese dictionary from around 100 CE, defines 泣 as “shedding tears without a sound”. Crying out loud had its own character, 哭, which the same dictionary calls “the sound of grief”. So in the Shuowen, 泣 is the quiet kind of crying. The video’s “standing there, tears running down” is a memory aid, not the history, but it fits that old definition surprisingly well.

In Japanese, 泣く now covers every kind of crying, from a few quiet tears to sobbing your heart out.

The happy ending: 笑

The video ends on 笑 (warau), to laugh, and its history is murkier. It has 竹, bamboo, on top and 夭 underneath. Older forms had 犬, a dog, at the bottom instead. The 夭 we write today goes back to Li Yangbing, a Tang-dynasty calligrapher, who said the kanji showed bamboo bending in the wind, like a person laughing. The scholar who recorded his idea added that he couldn’t be sure it was right. It’s a lovely picture, so keep it, but as a picture.

How to use it

• 赤ちゃんが泣いている。

  Akachan ga naite iru.

  The baby is crying.

• 泣かないで。

  Nakanaide.

  Don't cry.

• その映画を見て泣いちゃった。

  Sono eiga o mite naichatta.

  I cried watching that movie.

• 嬉しくて泣きました。

  Ureshikute nakimashita.

  I was so happy I cried.

• この本、泣けるよ。

  Kono hon, nakeru yo.

  This book will make you cry.

• People 泣く, animals 鳴く. Both are read naku, but a cat meowing, a bird singing or a cricket chirping is 鳴く, written with 口, mouth, and 鳥, bird. 泣く is for tears.
• 泣ける (nakeru), literally “can cry”, is how people praise a tear-jerker: この映画は泣ける, “this film will make you cry”.
• Gentle or blunt. 泣かないで (nakanaide) is a kind “don’t cry”. 泣くな (naku na) is blunt, more like an order.
• 泣き虫 (nakimushi), a “crying bug”, is a crybaby. It’s mild teasing, often aimed at children.

Words with the same kanji

Remember it

Water on the left, a person standing on the right: someone standing perfectly still, tears falling, not making a sound. That’s 泣, the silent crying the old dictionary describes. Then let the bamboo bend and laugh: 笑.

The kanji in this lesson

Tap Draw it to watch the stroke order. Numbers show where each stroke starts.

Draw it

Draw it

Draw it

Sources

• Multi-function Chinese Character Database (CUHK): 泣
• Wiktionary: 泣 (glyph origin)
• Multi-function Chinese Character Database (CUHK): 笑
• Wikipedia: Kanji (phono-semantic compounds)

Written by the Chirami team with the help of AI, then checked against JMdict and KANJIDIC2. How we write lessons. Spotted a mistake? Email support@brightsmilesolutions.org.