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Kanji for Frost

The kanji most commonly used for "Frost" is 霜.

Kanji that mean Frost

  • frost, white

    Also associated with cold.

    Onyomi: soh Kunyomi: shimo 17 strokes Jōyō

霜 (shimo / sō) is frost — the rain radical 雨 over 相: what falls and settles as a mutual coating on everything it finds. Frost matters in a rice-farming culture, and the old calendar honours it twice: 霜降 (sōkō), “frost descends”, is one of the twenty-four solar terms in late October, and 霜月 (shimotsuki), “frost month”, is the classical name for November.

The kitchen borrowed the image beautifully: 霜降り — “frost-falling” — is the marbling of premium wagyū beef, fat laced through red like frost across ground. And years leave 霜 on people: hair touched with grey is frosted in Japanese as in English.

Its colder siblings: 氷 (ice), 雪 (snow), 凍 (to freeze), and 露 (dew) — the warmer twin that falls without freezing. 初霜, the first frost, is an autumn kigo — a season-word — in haiku.

Before you use Frost kanji

霜 is delicate and unusual — frost, the marbling of beauty over cold, a November word. It carries a note of age (frosted hair) and of transience, both poetic rather than negative. A wagyū enthusiast will grin at it, which you may consider a feature.

Other meanings to explore

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