作る
Meaning in Englishto make, to create
Animated kanji stroke order
Related sentences
Word context
What it means
作る (tsukuru) means to intentionally bring something into existence by making, producing, or preparing it. It covers a wide range of acts—from crafting physical objects and cooking meals to composing works or producing outcomes—and emphasizes an agentive, deliberate process of creation or production rather than accidental occurrence.
Main meanings
- To prepare food or dishes, focusing on the act of cooking or assembling a meal.
- To manufacture or assemble goods in industry or craft contexts, often implying construction or fabrication.
- To compose or create intellectual or artistic works such as songs, stories, or plans.
- To fabricate or forge (e.g., false documents or excuses), emphasizing intentional construction of something deceptive.
- To cause or make happen in an abstract sense, such as making time, creating conditions, or forming relationships.
How to use it
Used across everyday, literary, technical, and formal contexts to talk about making or producing things; in casual speech it appears in plain forms and in polite situations as 作ります (masu form), while progressive, passive and potential conjugations express ongoing action, being made, or ability, respectively; it is transitive and commonly pairs with direct objects indicating what is being made.
Variants and close terms
- 造る (tsukuru) — to construct or build (used for large-scale manufacturing or structures)
- 創る (tsukuru) — to create (artistic or original creation, emphasizes creativity)
- 作成する (sakusei suru) — to create or draft (documents, files)
- 作り出す (tsukuridasu) — to produce or bring forth (focus on generating something new)
- 壊す (kowasu) — to break, destroy (antonym)
Composition
- 作 — the kanji carries the core meaning "make; work; compose" and is built from a person radical suggesting an action by someone; the attached okurigana る marks the verb inflection in modern Japanese, so the compound reads as the action 'to make'.
Etymology
作る (tsukuru) comes from an Old Japanese verb root *tsuku‑ with the verbal ending -ru; phonetic changes over centuries preserved the initial つ sound while the root developed into the modern tsuku + inflectional -ru pattern found in classical and medieval texts.
Origin
The verb appears early in the historical record of Japanese literature, with analogous forms attested in classical poetry and prose; over time its pragmatic range widened from concrete craft-making in premodern society to include industrial production and abstract creation in modern Japan.
Word class
verb (godan verb, 五段動詞; transitive, 他動詞)