Kanji1 / 4
牛 kanji
cow
- JLPT level
- N4 (unofficial)
- First appears in
- N5 vocabulary
- Strokes
- 4
- School grade
- Grade 2 (elementary school)
On readings
ギュウ
Kun readings
うし
Words with 牛
LevelWord & meaningActions
- —育成牛calf; cattle being reared
- —廃用牛culled cow; spent cow; spent bull
- —牛バラboneless beef rib; boned beef rib
- —斃牛馬(right to acquire) dead horses and cattle (Edo period)
- —見島牛Mishima beef
- —牛太郎brothel tout; pimp
- —十牛図Ten Ox-Herding Pictures (ten images and accompanying short poems in Zen iconography that use the herding of an ox as an analogy for training the mind on the path to enlightenment)
- —乾燥牛乳powdered milk
- —牛歩戦術snail's pace tactics; walking extremely slowly when voting in the Diet to delay proceedings; ox walk tactic
- —保証牛乳certified milk
- —牛飲馬食heavy eating and drinking; gorging and swilling; drinking like a cow and eating like a horse
- —ホモ牛乳homogenized milk; homogenised milk
- —汗牛充棟(having, there being) a great number of books
- —鶏口牛後better to be the beak of a rooster than the rump of a bull; better to be the leader of a small group than a subordinate in a large organization; better to be a big fish in a little pond than a little fish in a big pond
- —蝸牛角上trifling (fight); (a conflict) between small countries
- —割鶏牛刀using a meat ax when a knife would suffice; taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut; using a grand-scale measure (a massive instrument) to deal with an insignificant problem
- —牛鬼蛇神wicked and perverse; weird and incoherent
- —矯角殺牛trying to straighten the horns of a bull, and killing it in the process; trying to correct a small defect and ruining the whole thing; the cure is worse than the disease
- —蝸牛神経cochlear nerve
- —黒毛和牛Japanese Black (breed of cattle)