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Kanji for Bird
The kanji most commonly used for "Bird" are 鳥、禽、酉.
鳥
Kanji that mean Bird
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鳥
bird, fowl
Onyomi: choh Kunyomi: tori 11 strokes Jōyō
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禽
bird, to capture
Also associated with to enslave.
Onyomi: kin Kunyomi: tori, toriko 13 strokes Jinmeiyō
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酉
rooster, west, 6 pm
Onyomi: yuu Kunyomi: tori 7 strokes Jinmeiyō
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雀
sparrow, bird
Onyomi: jaku, jan, saku, shaku Kunyomi: suzume 11 strokes Jinmeiyō
鳥 is the bird. It reads tori alone and chō in compounds — 野鳥 (wild birds), 白鳥 (swan), 小鳥 (small bird). Note that in food contexts tori usually means chicken specifically: 焼き鳥 is grilled chicken, not grilled songbird.
禽 is a literary, collective word for fowl and appears almost only inside compounds: 家禽 (poultry), 猛禽 (bird of prey). It is not used on its own.
酉 is the rooster of the zodiac, the tenth branch, and it turns up in 酉年 (the year of the rooster) and in old time-keeping. It is also the component in characters for fermented things — 酒 (sake), 酢 (vinegar), 醤 (as in 醤油) — so alone it reads as a calendar or dictionary term rather than as a bird.
雀 is the sparrow, small and specific. It is the character in 孔雀 (peacock) and, less expectedly, in 麻雀 (mahjong).
Words using Bird kanji
Everyday Japanese vocabulary built from the characters above.
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野鳥
やちょう
wild bird
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麻雀
マージャン
mahjong; mah-jongg
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白鳥
はくちょう
swan (Cygnus spp.); white bird
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鳥類
ちょうるい
birds
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渡り鳥
わたりどり
migratory bird; bird of passage
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小鳥
ことり
small bird; little bird
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水鳥
みずとり
waterfowl; water bird; shorebird
Before you use Bird kanji
鳥 is the safe choice. 酉 is a zodiac and calendar sign rather than a bird anyone would wear, and 禽 is a bookish word for fowl that never stands alone. 雀 is fine, but it says sparrow, not bird in general.