心
Meaning in Englishheart, mind, feeling
Animated kanji stroke order
Related sentences
Word context
What it means
The kanji 心 (kokoro) denotes the inner center of a person—the seat of emotions, thoughts, intention, and moral feeling; it functions as a general term for one’s emotional and mental life rather than a physical organ.
Main meanings
- emotional core: the source of affection, sympathy, and sentiment distinct from deliberate thought;
- mental state: moods, temperament, or what someone is thinking at a given moment;
- intention or will: the motive or resolve behind actions;
- courage or spirit: a person’s bravery or determination in challenge;
- central point or essence: the heart of an issue or the essential core of something.
How to use it
Used across spoken and written Japanese to describe feelings, mental states, motives, and the figurative 'heart' of matters; common in everyday speech to express personal feelings and intentions, and in formal or written language as part of compound words and abstract concepts; appears extensively in literature, religion, self-help, and interpersonal expressions.
Variants and close terms
- 気 (き, ki) — spirit, energy, mood
- 精神 (せいしん, seishin) — mind, spirit (more abstract/formal)
- 感情 (かんじょう, kanjou) — emotion, feeling (emotional states)
- 意志 (いし, ishi) — will, volition
- 無心 (むしん, mushin) — no-mind, absence of distracting thoughts (often philosophical)
Composition
The character 心 is a single pictographic kanji historically depicting a stylized heart; it functions as an independent character and also appears as the heart radical in other characters (in its variant form 忄 when positioned at the left side), signaling meanings related to feelings or mental activity.
Etymology
心 (kokoro) carries two reading traditions: its Sino-Japanese (on) pronunciation traces to Middle Chinese phonology and yields readings like shin, while the native Japanese (kun) pronunciation is kokoro; the modern readings result from historical sound changes as Chinese morphemes were adapted into Japanese.
Origin
The character arrived in Japan with imported Chinese writing and classical texts during the early centuries of the first millennium; it became prominent through Buddhist and Confucian literature and court writing, where its abstract sense of inner life and moral feeling shaped Japanese literary and philosophical uses.
Word class
noun (名詞), also used as a Sino-Japanese morpheme in compounds (漢語)