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Kanji for Forgiveness

The kanji most commonly used for "Forgiveness" are 赦、許、恕.

Kanji that mean Forgiveness

  • to forgive, pardon

    Onyomi: sha Kunyomi: yuru.su 11 strokes Jōyō

  • to permit, to forgive, approximately

    Onyomi: kyo Kunyomi: moto, yuru.su 11 strokes Jōyō

  • forgiveness, compassion

    Also associated with empathy.

    Onyomi: jo, sho Kunyomi: yuru.su 10 strokes Jinmeiyō

赦 is the dedicated character for forgiveness, and it is formal — releasing someone from punishment or blame. 恩赦 is an amnesty and 容赦 is leniency, though the form you meet most often is 容赦ない, meaning without mercy. 赦 is a Jōyō character but is rarely written outside those compounds.

許 is the character in the sentence you would actually say. 許す (yurusu) covers both permitting and forgiving, which is why the same character gives 許可 (permission). Context, not the character, decides which sense is meant, and for everyday forgiving it is the ordinary word.

恕 belongs to classical Chinese thought: forgiveness as fellow-feeling, tolerating others because you understand them. It is a Confucian virtue rather than a modern word, and today it survives mostly in given names and in quotation.

Before you use Forgiveness kanji

赦 is the precise character for pardon, but it is almost always seen inside 恩赦 or 容赦, so alone it reads as legal remission. 許 is more natural in speech yet will be read as "permit" as readily as "forgive". 恕 reads as classical and scholarly.

Other meanings to explore

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