Japanese symbol for “flakes”

削り

けずり

Romaji: kezuri

shaving; planing; cutting

In Japanese, flakes is 削り, read けずり (kezuri).

Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.

Meanings

n, n-pref, n-suf shaving; planing; cutting
n, n-pref, n-suf shavings; flakes

Kanji and stroke order

削

plane, sharpen, whittle

on: サク
kun: けず.る、はつ.る、そ.ぐ

9 strokes · JLPT 1

Related words

Words that share a kanji.

Word	Reading	Meaning
削減	さくげん sakugen	cut; reduction; curtailment
削除	さくじょ sakujo	deletion; elimination; erasure
削る	けずる kezuru	to shave (wood, leather, etc.); to sharpen (e.g. pencil); to plane
添削	てんさく tensaku	correction; looking over; touching up
掘削	くっさく kussaku	digging out; excavation
削り節	けずりぶし kezuribushi	flaked bonito

Data: JMdict (CC BY-SA 4.0); KANJIDIC2 (CC BY-SA 4.0); KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.