苦しむ
Meaning in Englishsuffer, be in pain, struggle
Animated kanji stroke order
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)