Emaki · all 1,500 words

苦労

くろう

difficulty, hardship

Mnemonic

Bitter work, put in over years and almost all of it out of sight. She brought the pair of us up on it, a crew くろう of one: くろう.

Worth knowing

難しい むずかしい is a thing being hard to work out. 苦労 is the hardship of getting through it.

Built from

bitter, painful
艹 grass + 古 old
labour, trouble
力 power down at the bottom under a cover, put in out of sight. The effort, and what it takes out of you.

Words sharing these kanji

painful, difficult hard to deal with, weak point

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Emaki is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Kaishi 1.5k or its authors. The word, reading and meaning come from the Kaishi 1.5k deck, used with their permission. The mnemonic, the note and the kanji breakdown are original work, published under CC BY-SA 4.0.