来る
Meaning in Englishto come
Animated kanji stroke order
Related sentences
Word context
What it means
The verb 来る (kuru) denotes movement or occurrence toward a reference point: physical approach to the speaker or the arrival/beginning of an event or condition; it is used to report someone or something reaching, appearing, or becoming present relative to a deictic center.
Main meanings
- 1. Temporal/impending: signals that an event, season, or time is approaching (the notion of something 'coming up' on the timeline).
- 2. Onset of a state: describes the sudden appearance or onset of sensations, symptoms, or conditions (the sense of something 'coming on').
- 3. Figurative approach: used for non-physical approach such as trends, threats, moods, or opportunities drawing near.
- 4. Emphatic/colloquial nuance: in casual speech can express strong expectation or imminence without precise directionality.
How to use it
Found in virtually all registers: casual plain form 来る (kuru) in conversation and a polite conjugation in formal speech; appears when asking someone to approach, describing events that will happen, reporting arrivals, or indicating that a condition has begun; commonly combined with particles and auxiliary constructions to mark direction, timing, or aspect, and frequently appears in headlines and everyday instructions.
Variants and close terms
- 行く (iku) — go (antonym)
- 到着する (tōchaku suru) — arrive (formal synonym)
- 訪れる (otozureru) — visit; arrive at (nuanced synonym)
- 来訪する (raihō suru) — visit (formal/composed synonym)
Composition
The single character 来 has the on'yomi rai and kun'yomi kuru / ko-; graphically it is derived from marks resembling a plant or grain above a stem and is indexed under the 木 (tree) visual element in many dictionaries; it is written with seven strokes in modern standard form and takes okurigana as 来る (kuru) when used as a verb.
Origin
The verb is attested in Old and Classical Japanese (appearing in Heian-period texts) as a core motion verb; the spoken root persisted through historical sound changes, while Chinese characters were later applied in writing to represent the word.
Word class
verb, irregular verb (kuru) (カ行変格活用・不規則動詞)