CHARACTER HOME PAGE

鹿
deer; "deer" radical
Kanji 2025

Thank you for visiting this Character Home Page. Below you'll find a synopsis of the essay. If you wish to read the full text, the PDF of the essay is available for purchase to the right.

Synopsis

In parts of Japan (e.g., in Nara and Miyajima), deer are quite visible—so much so that oblivious people can't see the mountains for the deer, figuratively speaking. Because it's half of 馬鹿 (fool), this new Joyo kanji enables us to ridicule idiots (who have a contagious and incurable condition, by the way). As both a radical and an autonomous kanji, 鹿 appears in the names of several animals.

Revision history:

June 22, 2021: 

  • p. 2: Added the Henshall etymology and deleted the previous one.
  • p. 17: Added a link to the Kanshudo games.

Dec. 9, 2016: 

  • p. 1: Deleted this Character Profile note under the look-alikes: “When it comes to 鹿, ロク is a rarely used, non-Joyo on-yomi.” It IS a Joyo yomi, though rarely used. 
  • pp. 1 and 10: Removed broken links.

Nov. 21, 2014: p. 12 sidebar: Fixed a typo.

June 22, 2012: Originally published.

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Kanji PDF
Mini Profile
JOYO ON-YOMI
None
JOYO KUN-YOMI
しか, か
STROKES11
RADICAL鹿 (198: deer)
JLPTN1
HALPERN1996/2695
HENSHALL-/1420
SPAHN3q8.5