苦しむ
Meaning in Englishsuffer, be in pain, struggle
Animated kanji stroke order
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Word context
What it means
苦しむ means to experience physical or emotional pain or distress and to endure hardship; it describes an ongoing state of suffering and applies to illness, misfortune, or difficult circumstances.
Main meanings
- to experience physical pain or illness
- to feel emotional distress or anxiety
- to endure hardship or difficult circumstances
- to be afflicted by a situation or misfortune
How to use it
Used in formal, literary, and narrative contexts to describe ongoing states of distress or hardship; with patterns subject は/が + source + に苦しむ, or with progressive 苦しんでいる; common in medical, social, and news contexts to report illness or misfortune.
Variants and close terms
- 苦痛を感じる (くつうをかんじる) — feel pain
- 苦悶する (くもんする) — suffer greatly
- 痛む (いたむ) — hurt, ache
- 苦労する (くろうする) — encounter difficulties
Composition
- 苦: pain, distress
- しむ: native verb suffix forming a verb indicating undergoing the state
Etymology
苦 carries the kun-reading くる in the relevant compounds and the native verb suffix しむ attaches to form 苦しむ, the intransitive verb meaning to suffer; this is a native formation rather than a loanword, reflecting the core concept of pain and hardship in Japanese.
Word class
verb (動詞)