King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Japanese symbol for “whittle”

Romaji: kezuru
to shave (wood, leather, etc.); to sharpen (e.g. pencil); to plane; to whittle

In Japanese, whittle is , read (kezuru).

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

  1. v5r, vt to shave (wood, leather, etc.); to sharpen (e.g. pencil); to plane; to whittle; to pare; to scrape off
  2. v5r, vt to cut down (budget, expenses, staff, time, etc.); to curtail; to reduce
  3. v5r, vt to delete; to erase; to remove; to cross out; to strike out

Kanji and stroke order

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.

WordReadingMeaning
さくげん sakugencut; reduction; curtailment
さくじょ sakujodeletion; elimination; erasure
てんさく tensakucorrection; looking over; touching up
くっさく kussakudigging out; excavation
けずりぶし kezuribushiflaked bonito

See also: Chinese symbol for “whittle”.

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.

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