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Kanji Detail for 霜 - "frost, white"

霜

  • Meaning

    霜 means "frost, white." Also associated with cold.

    1. Frost - Frozen water vapor forming ice crystals.

    2. Cold - Low temperature; chilly.

    3. White - The color of frost; pure white.

    4. Years - A poetic term for the passage of time.

  • Four-character idioms with 霜

    • 秋霜烈日 しゅうそうれつじつ Listen harshness; severity

  • Origin of 霜

    雨, the weather radical, over 相, which lends the reading sō: frost. 初霜 is the first frost of the year, and 霜降 the solar term in late October that is named for it.

    How to remember it: Water from the sky 雨 that arrived already hard — frost.

    Sources: en.wiktionary.org · mojinavi.com

  • Tattoo check: 霜

    • Verified meaning: frost, white
    • Official Jōyō kanji — a standard character every Japanese reader recognises
    • Used in real Japanese given names (read しも, しもざき, そう)
    • Also carries these associations: cold

    A single kanji rarely maps one-to-one onto an English word. Read the meanings and associations above as a set — a character that fits the dictionary definition can still carry a connotation you did not intend.

  • Name readings of 霜

    Surnames 霜(しも)Listen 霜(しもざき)Listen 霜(そう)Listen

  • Compare with other kanji that mean the same thing:

  • Dictionary Citations

    The meaning above is based on the following sources:

    KANJIDIC2 A comprehensive Japanese-English kanji dictionary

    frost

    Unihan Unicode Han Database for CJK characters

    frost; crystallized; candied

    CC-CEDICT A Chinese-English dictionary

    frost; white powder or cream spread over a surface; frosting; (skin) cream

    Make Me a Hanzi Open-source Chinese character data

    frost; frozen, crystallized, candied

    XSZD Xuéshēng Zìdiǎn (學生字典) - Student's Dictionary

    When water vapor condenses into dew at a temperature below freezing, it forms fine granules and becomes frost. The Book of Odes says: "White dew becomes frost." | Years are called 霜. As in 星霜 (years).

  • Onyomi

    tip

    soh(ソウ) ソウ

  • Kunyomi

    tip

    shimo(しも) しも

  • Strokes

    tip

    17 strokes

  • Radical

    tip

    雨 (ame・amekammuri・amakammuri)

  • Related Keywords

    frost cold white years aged chill cool crisp crystal freeze frigid frozen ice icy rime season shiver snow temperature winter wintry

Sentences including 霜

  • Frost touched the flowers.

  • It frosted last night.

  • Frost touched the flower.

  • There is frost on the grass.

  • Frost is frozen dew.

  • The frost killed all the flowers.

  • There is frost on the road.

  • We had a heavy frost this morning.

  • The hoarfrost has not begun to thaw yet.

  • The plants were damaged by the frost.

Sentences from Japanese classical masterpieces

More kanji with the radical 雨 (ame・amekammuri・amakammuri)

See all kanji with this radical →

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