Rain over a rice field? The kanji for thunder (雷)

The kanji for thunder, 雷 (kaminari), looks like a tiny weather map: 雨, rain, on top of 田, a rice field. But this is no flooded paddy. The 田 began as a drawing of thunder itself, and the oldest forms of the kanji showed a flash of lightning with thunder rolling around it.

What the kanji say

雨 (ame) is rain. In the oldest forms it’s the sky or a cloud on top, with drops falling underneath. Squashed flat on top of a kanji, it marks the weather: 雪 (yuki), snow, 雲 (kumo), cloud, and 電 (den), which first meant lightning and now means electricity.

田 (ta) is a rice field, drawn as plots divided by paths. You know it from 田んぼ (tanbo), a paddy field, and from names like 田中 (Tanaka). In 雷, though, the same shape has a different past.

Where the 田 really comes from

On oracle bones carved more than 3,000 years ago, thunder was written as a zigzag of lightning, 申, with one to four small circles beside it. The circles are often read as wheels: people compared the rumble of thunder to the sound of cart wheels rolling. In later bronze inscriptions, scribes added 雨 on top, since thunder and lightning come with storms.

For a long time the kanji kept several of those wheels, as in the old form 靁, and the circles were squared off into 田-shaped boxes. The Shuowen Jiezi, a Chinese dictionary from around 100 CE, says the boxes show something turning round and round. Today’s 雷 keeps just one.

The boxes do a second job, too. In Old Chinese the three-box character 畾 sounded like the word for thunder, so some dictionaries also count it as the sound part of 雷. Either way the video is right: the 田 in 雷 began as rolling thunder, and it has nothing to do with rice.

The lightning got a kanji of its own. The zigzag 申 was later borrowed for other meanings, so rain was added to it to make 電, lightning. Today 電 mostly means electricity, as in 電気 (denki), electricity, and 電話 (denwa), telephone.

Kaminari: the gods rumbling

The Japanese word is just as vivid. かみなり (kaminari) comes from 神 (kami), god, and 鳴り (nari), a rumbling or ringing, from 鳴る (naru), to sound. Thunder was the noise the gods made. An older word, いかずち (ikazuchi), is usually explained as “fearsome spirit”.

The thunder god is still around in everyday speech as 雷様 (kaminari-sama), and an old saying warns children to hide their belly buttons during a thunderstorm, or the thunder god will take them.

How to use it

• 雷が鳴っている。

  Kaminari ga natte iru.

  It's thundering.

• 昨日、近くに雷が落ちた。

  Kinou, chikaku ni kaminari ga ochita.

  Lightning struck nearby yesterday.

• 夕方から雷雨になるでしょう。

  Yuugata kara raiu ni naru deshou.

  Thunderstorms are likely from this evening.

• 父の雷が落ちた。

  Chichi no kaminari ga ochita.

  My father really yelled at me.

• 雷 is both thunder and lightning. 雷が鳴る (kaminari ga naru): thunder rumbles. 雷が落ちる (kaminari ga ochiru), “thunder falls”: lightning strikes. The flash itself is 稲妻 (inazuma) or 稲光 (inabikari).
• Getting yelled at is also 雷が落ちる, with the angry parent or boss as the thunder. A grumpy father or old man who yells at the slightest thing is a 雷親父 (kaminari oyaji).
• In compounds, 雷 is read らい (rai): 雷雨 (raiu), a thunderstorm, and 落雷 (rakurai), a lightning strike.

Words with the same kanji

Remember it

Rain on top, and under it a cart wheel rumbling across the sky. Rain plus rolling wheels: 雷, thunder.

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): 雷
• Wiktionary: 雷
• Kotobank: 雷 (Japanese dictionaries)
• Kotobank: 雷親父

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.