黒

Glyph origin

Variant of 黑. Simplified from 黑, replacing two dots with one stroke. The modern Japanese usage is of reform (shinjitai) nature. Compare 毋, the shinjitai of 母.

Han character

黒 (radical 203, 黑+0, 11 strokes, cangjie input 田土火 (WGF) or X田土火 (XWGF), composition ⿱里灬)

Kanji

(grade 2 “Kyōiku” kanji, shinjitai kanji, kyūjitai form 黑)

1. black

Etymology

黒 (kuro): the colour black.

⟨kuro₁⟩ → /kuro/

From Old Japanese, first attested in the Kojiki (712 CE).

Via root morpheme *kur, cognates include:

• 涅 (kuri, “black mud from the bed of a body of water”)^[1]
• 暗 (kura, “darkness; deception”), 蔵, 倉, 庫 (kura, “[dark] storehouse”), and 暗い (kurai, “dark”)
• classical verb 暮る (kuru), modern 暮れる (kureru, “to become dark; to near the end [of a day, of a year, of a life”), and 暗れる, 眩れる (kureru, “to become depressed, to become dreary of mood”)

Compare Proto-Turkic *kara (“black”), Mongolian хар (har, “black”). Possibly also cognate with Korean 구름 (gureum, “cloud”); compare also Japanese 雲 (kumo, “cloud”) and Korean 검 (*geom, “black”), root morpheme of 검다 (geomda, “to be black”, ve​rb), 검은 (geomeun, “black”, adjective).

Pronunciation

• Kun’yomi
  • (Tokyo) く​ろ [kúꜜrò] (Atamadaka – [1])^[2]
  • IPA^(key): [kɯ̟ᵝɾo̞]

Noun

黒 (shinjitai kanji, kyūjitai kanji 黑, hiragana くろ, rōmaji kuro)

1. black (color)

   Antonym: 白 (shiro)

2. (go) a black stone; the person who plays black stones

   Synonym: 先手 (sente)

3. a 女房詞 (nyōbō kotoba, “woman's word”) for 鍋 (nabe, “pot, pan”) or 釜 (kama, “pot, kettle”)
4. (accounting) Short for 黒字 (kuroji): black as an accounting term, indicating a profit
5. (euphemistic) Short for 黒幕 (kuromaku): a black curtain (someone influencing or controlling matters from behind the scenes)
6. guilt; the guilty one, the guilty party

   Synonym: 有罪 (yūzai‎) (guilt)

   Antonym: 白 (shiro) (innocence)

7. (slang) anarchy as a belief system or philosophy

   Synonym: 無政府主義 (musei-fu shugi)

8. (slang) an anarchist

   Synonym: 無政府主義者 (musei-fu shugi-sha)

See also

References