Emaki · all 1,500 words

食う

くう

to eat, to live on

Mnemonic

The same 食 as 食べる, except that nobody here is being delicate about it. No table たべ involved at all: he coos くう over the sink and eats standing up: くう.

Worth knowing

Blunt and masculine. 食べる たべる is the neutral one. 食う also does living on something: 芸で食う.

Built from

eat, food
A lid sitting over a heaped dish.

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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.