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Kanji for Willow
The kanji most commonly used for "Willow" are 柳、楊.
柳
Kanji that mean Willow
柳 (yanagi / ryū) is the willow — the tree 木 that bends. In Japan it is the tree of water’s edge and pleasure quarters: willows lined the canals of old Edo and Kyoto’s Gion, where 柳腰, a “willow waist”, praised a dancer’s supple line. The tree’s whole character is yielding that does not break — 柳に雪折れなし, “snow never snaps the willow”, is the proverb of flexible strength, and 柳に風 (“willow in wind”) describes deflecting hostility by not resisting it.
Its eerie side is equally traditional: ghosts in ukiyo-e appear under willows, the drooping branches half-curtaining the other world. And its lucky side rides on 柳の下の泥鰌 — don’t expect a second loach under the same willow: lightning-luck doesn’t repeat.
楊 (yō) is the other willow character — the upright species — surviving mostly in 楊枝, the toothpick, and in names. 川柳 (senryū), the comic cousin of haiku, is literally “river willow”, named for a poet.
Words using Willow kanji
Everyday Japanese vocabulary built from the characters above.
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川柳
せんりゅう
senryū; comic haiku; humorous seventeen-mora poem
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青柳
あおやぎ
green willow (i.e. one that has budded); meat of the trough shell (Mactra chinensis)
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花柳
かりゅう
red-light district
Before you use Willow kanji
柳 reads as graceful resilience — bending, never breaking — with a romantic, water's-edge atmosphere. The ghost-under-the-willow association is folkloric seasoning, not a curse. For martial artists the yielding metaphor (柳に風) makes it a quietly perfect choice.