Word
厄介
Meaning in Englishtrouble, burden, nuisance
Animated kanji stroke order
Word context
What it means
厄介 means troublesome or burdensome; something or someone that causes problems or extra effort and is unwelcome to deal with.
Main meanings
- nuisance or burden that complicates a plan
- a person or thing that requires extra care or effort
- a tricky or awkward problem that is hard to solve
How to use it
Used as a na-adjective to describe people, tasks, or situations that create trouble or require extra effort; more common in casual and semi-formal contexts, often paired with 厄介だ/厄介な before a noun; examples in Japanese: 厄介な問題 (yakkaina mondai), 厄介な手続き (yakkaina tetsuzuki).
Variants and close terms
- 迷惑な (meiwaku na) – nuisance
- 面倒な (mendou na) – bothersome, tedious
- 手間がかかる (tema ga kakaru) – time-consuming
- 楽な (raku na) – easy, not troublesome
Composition
- 厄: misfortune, calamity
- 介: interpose, intervene
- Together: a burden or problem that interposes itself between you and a goal; something troublesome that demands extra effort
Etymology
From 厄 misfortune and 介 interpose, the compound formed in classical Japanese; the pronunciation merged into the modern yakkai as a single word.
Word class
na-adjective (形容動詞)