炊く
Meaning in Englishcook rice, boil food
Animated kanji stroke order
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)