炊く
Meaning in Englishcook rice, boil food
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Word context
What it means
What does 炊く mean? It means to cook food by applying heat with water, especially rice, using a pot or rice cooker; the core concept is transforming raw grains into cooked edible food through heat and moisture.
Main meanings
- to cook grains by heating with water, typically through boiling or steaming
- to prepare rice or other grains in everyday cooking, involving turning raw ingredients into a finished dish
- used in related kitchen terms and expressions that refer to the act or state of cooking, such as generic cooking processes
How to use it
A transitive verb taking a direct object marked with を; used across casual and formal speech, in recipes and kitchen discourse, and in everyday instruction for cooking rice and other grains; its polite forms extend the same meaning to formal contexts.
Variants and close terms
- 煮る (niru) - to simmer or boil, a different cooking method
- 炊飯 (suihan) - rice cooking as a noun or process
Composition
炊 combines the fire radical with a semantic element tied to heating to cook; when combined with the verb ending taku plus く, it yields the action of cooking by heat, especially rice or grains.
Etymology
炊 is a phono-semantic kanji formed with the fire radical 灬 and a semantic element linked to heating and cooking; its Japanese reading is taku, preserved as the modern pronunciation, reflecting a native development rather than a direct loanword.
Word class
verb (godan)