茨 · briar, thorn

JLPT N4 kanji. Readings, meaning, and how the character is built.

茨 means briar, thorn. It is a JLPT N4 kanji written in 9 strokes, read いばら or かや or し. It combines 艹 (grass, plant), which carries the meaning, with 次, which is there for its sound し.

筆順 · Stroke order

茨 is written in 9 strokes, in the order numbered below. Order matters: it is what makes handwriting legible, and it is how the character is looked up in a paper dictionary.

解字 · What it is made of

茨 breaks into 2 parts.

• 艹 semantic grass, plant · top carries the meaning
• 次 phonetic next, order · bottom carries the sound

Characters that share 次

次 tends to carry the sound し. They carry it; they do not all mean the same thing.

	Reading	Meaning
次	し	next, order
資	し	assets, resources
姿	し	figure, form
茨	し	briar, thorn
恣	し	selfish, arbitrary

Built from the same parts

These use 艹 or 次 too. The part keeps its job from one character to the next, which is what makes it worth learning once.

• 花flower
• 茶tea

Practise 茨

Sumi teaches the character before it tests you: stroke order animated, the breakdown above shown as a pull-apart X-ray, then spaced review. Free, in your browser, no signup.

Start with kanji, free