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Kanji for Red
The kanji most commonly used for "Red" are 赤、紅、朱.
赤
Kanji that mean Red
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赤
red
Also associated with bare, sincerity.
Onyomi: seki, shaku Kunyomi: aka, aka.i, aka.ramu, akara.meru 7 strokes Jōyō
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紅
red, rouge
Also associated with feminine.
Onyomi: koh, ku Kunyomi: aka.i, beni, kurenai 9 strokes Jōyō
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朱
red, currency unit
Onyomi: shu Kunyomi: ake 6 strokes Jōyō
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緋
scarlet, crimson, red silk
Onyomi: hi Kunyomi: aka, ake 14 strokes Jinmeiyō
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丹
red, cinnabar, sincerity
Onyomi: tan Kunyomi: ni 4 strokes Jōyō
赤 is red plainly — the color word, 赤い, the one a child learns first. It also carries a sense of utter or complete: 赤の他人 is a total stranger, 真っ赤な嘘 an outright lie.
紅 is deep red, crimson, the red of dye and cosmetics. It is in 口紅 (lipstick), 紅葉 (autumn leaves) and 紅茶 (black tea, which Japanese calls red tea). Read beni or kurenai, it is softer and more literary than 赤.
朱 is vermilion, the orange-red of shrine gates and of the seal ink in 朱印. 丹 is the red of cinnabar, and it doubles as sincerity — 丹念 means painstaking, done with care — which makes it the least purely visual of the four. For a name or a single character, 紅 and 朱 read as particular shades with an aesthetic edge; 赤 reads as the flat everyday word for the color.
Words using Red kanji
Everyday Japanese vocabulary built from the characters above.
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赤字
あかじ
(being in) the red; deficit; red letter
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紅白
こうはく
red and white; colours for festive or auspicious occasions (colors); two teams
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丹念
たんねん
painstaking; careful; meticulous
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赤ちゃん
あかちゃん
baby; infant
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紅茶
こうちゃ
black tea
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丹精
たんせい
working earnestly; sincerity; diligence
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赤松
あかまつ
Japanese red pine (Pinus densiflora); Japanese umbrella pine; tanyosho pine
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口紅
くちべに
lipstick
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赤軍
せきぐん
Red Army (Soviet Union, 1918-1946); Workers' and Peasants' Red Army; Japanese Red Army
Before you use Red kanji
紅 and 朱 are the attractive choices and read as specific shades rather than as a label. 赤 is correct but blunt: it is the basic color word and also means plain or utter, as in 赤の他人, a complete stranger. 丹 will read as much like sincerity as like red.