Fox in Japanese is 狐, said kitsune. Nine strokes in Japanese dictionaries, built from 犭, the animal radical, and 瓜, a melon that supplies the sound. The same word names the real animal and the shape-shifting fox of folklore. Written in hiragana it is きつね, and in katakana キツネ, the form science writing uses.
Fox in Japanese
Fox in Japanese is 狐, and the spoken word is kitsune. What changes from place to place is how it is written, and the spelling tells you where you are.
In Hokkaido, the tour buses stop for キツネ, in katakana, because that is how Japanese writes the names of living species: the local animal is the キタキツネ (kita-kitsune), the northern fox. At a shrine in Kyoto, the stone animals by the gate are 狐 in kanji, messengers of a god. On a noodle menu in Osaka, きつね in hiragana means a bowl topped with sweet fried tofu, and no fox is involved at all.
The on’yomi コ (ko) is rare. It turns up in a few literary compounds, 白狐 (byakko, a white fox) the most familiar. Almost everywhere else, a fox is a kitsune.
This page is about the word and the character. For the fox spirits themselves, the nine tails, the fox wives and the possessions, see our full page on kitsune.
Kitsune Meaning
Kitsune (狐) means fox: the red fox, Vulpes vulpes, of which Japan has two subspecies, the northern fox of Hokkaido and the smaller hondo-gitsune of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. In hiragana it is きつね, in katakana キツネ, and it is said “kee-tsoo-neh,” three short beats. It is also a winter season word in haiku.
The word is old. A Buddhist sutra glossary compiled in 794 already records the Japanese reading for the character, written out in borrowed syllables as 岐都禰, ki-tsu-ne. Where it came from is unknown. A famous folk etymology, the fox wife who comes home to sleep, is told on our kitsune page, but linguists treat it as a story.
Like the English word, kitsune stretches to people. A kitsune is a sly, flattering person, and in the Kansai dialect the word itself bends to ketsune, as in けつねうどん. The food sense is worth knowing on its own: on a menu, きつね simply means fried tofu, the topping foxes are said to love.
The Kanji for Fox: 狐
- Character: 狐
- On’yomi: コ (ko)
- Kun’yomi: きつね (kitsune)
- Stroke count: 9 in Japanese dictionaries; Chinese references and the Unicode database count 8
- General meaning: fox; by extension a cunning person
- Radical: 犭, the side form of 犬 (dog), Kangxi radical 94, with six strokes added
狐 is not one of the 2,136 Jōyō kanji, and it is not on the separate list of characters approved for given names either. That means it is not taught in school, no child in Japan can be registered with it in their first name, and print often falls back on the kana spellings. It is familiar from shrine signs and old stories, but it is not a character anyone is drilled to write.
Japanese Symbol for Fox
狐 is a phono-semantic compound, which is the most common way kanji are built: one half for meaning, one half for sound.
The meaning half is 犭, called kemonohen, the beast side. It is 犬 squeezed into a narrow column, and it marks a long row of animals: 猫 (neko, cat), 狼 (ookami, wolf), 狸 (tanuki). Its full form is on dog in Japanese, and you can watch it work in cat in Japanese and wolf in Japanese.
The sound half is 瓜 (uri), a melon or gourd. It carries no meaning here. It was chosen for its sound in old Chinese, and the characters built on it still share a family of readings. Two of them are read ko in Japanese, exactly like the fox, with completely different meanings: 孤 (ko), alone, as in 孤独 (kodoku, loneliness), and 弧 (ko), an arc. A fox, an orphan and a curve, all pronounced alike.
The melon is also why the stroke counts disagree. Japanese writes 瓜 with six strokes, and Chinese standards count five. So the same fox is nine strokes in a Japanese dictionary and eight in a Chinese one. Neither is wrong.
How to Write 狐 in Japanese
Nine strokes, left before right, as with any character split down the middle.
The animal radical comes first, in three: a short stroke slanting down to the left, then a long curving stroke that bends down and finishes with a small hook, then a short left-falling stroke attached to its middle. Then 瓜 in six, working from the short stroke across its top down through the body of the gourd, with the long sweep to the lower right written last.
The balance is lopsided on purpose. 犭 should take no more than a third of the width, and 瓜 gets the rest, its final sweep the one stroke allowed to stretch. If the radical is too wide, the melon gets crushed.
How to Say Fox in Japanese
Kitsune is three beats: “kee-tsoo-neh.” The first i is often whispered in natural speech, so it can sound close to “k’tsoo-neh,” and the final e is short, as in “bed.” No syllable is stressed. Ko in compounds is a single short “koh.”
Real sentences:
- 庭に狐がいる。(Niwa ni kitsune ga iru.) There is a fox in the garden.
- 北海道でキタキツネを見ました。(Hokkaidou de kita-kitsune o mimashita.) I saw a northern fox in Hokkaido.
- きつねうどんをください。(Kitsune udon o kudasai.) Kitsune udon, please.
- 狐につままれたような顔をしている。(Kitsune ni tsumamareta you na kao o shite iru.) He looks completely baffled.
- 晴れているのに雨だ。狐の嫁入りだね。(Harete iru noni ame da. Kitsune no yomeiri da ne.) It’s sunny and raining. A fox’s wedding.
The fourth sentence is everyday Japanese: to be pinched by a fox is to be left bewildered, as if bewitched.
Words and Compounds With 狐
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 狐火 | kitsunebi | foxfire, ghostly lights seen at night |
| 狐の嫁入り | kitsune no yomeiri | a sunshower; literally the fox’s wedding |
| 白狐 | byakko | a white fox, the sacred kind |
| 狐色 | kitsune-iro | light golden brown |
| 女狐 | megitsune | a vixen; also a scheming woman |
| 狐憑き | kitsunetsuki | fox possession |
| 狐疑 | kogi | doubt, suspicion (literary) |
| 稲荷寿司 | inarizushi | rice packed into fried tofu pouches |
狐色 is a kitchen word. When a recipe tells you to fry or toast something until it is 狐色, it wants the soft golden brown of a fox’s coat. And inarizushi never says fox at all: it is named for Inari, the god whose foxes are said to love fried tofu.
Two proverbs are worth learning. 虎の威を借る狐 (tora no i o karu kitsune), the fox that borrows the tiger’s authority, comes from the Chinese Strategies of the Warring States and describes someone who throws a powerful patron’s weight around. The tiger is on tiger in Japanese. And 狐と狸の化かし合い (kitsune to tanuki no bakashiai), the fox and the tanuki bewitching each other, is a contest between two equally crafty people, since both animals are said to fool humans.
Fox in Japanese Culture
The fox is the messenger of Inari, the deity of rice and prosperity, and Inari shrines are said to outnumber every other kind of shrine in Japan. Fushimi Inari Taisha, the head shrine in Kyoto, is careful about the details: the messengers are invisible white foxes, called byakkosan, and Inari is not a fox. The stone pairs at every Inari gate are portraits of something nobody can see. Our page on Inari explains the deity and the shrines.
Folklore did the rest. Foxes in Japanese stories take human form, marry, deceive, possess, and grow extra tails with age until the oldest have nine. All of that lives on the kitsune page, along with the fox wedding processions some towns still stage. The white fox mask you see at festivals comes from the same root, and our guide to Japanese masks shows where it fits among the others.
The animal is still very present. The northern fox of Hokkaido is a tourist favourite, photographed against the snow. Everywhere else, the fox you are most likely to meet is in a bowl of udon.
As a Tattoo
狐 is a good tattoo character. It means fox, cleanly, and because the fox carries so much folklore in Japan, a Japanese reader will often take it the way you probably mean it: clever, otherworldly, a little dangerous. Being outside the school list gives it a faintly literary look, like a character from a shrine sign or an old story.
Watch the look-alikes. 孤 (ko) has the same melon on the right but 子 (child) on the left, and it means alone; 孤独 (kodoku) is loneliness. 弧 has the bow radical and means an arc. A careless artist who swaps the left side gives you solitude instead of a fox, and the difference is three strokes.
Check pairings. 女狐 (megitsune) is an insult for a scheming woman, and 狐憑き (kitsunetsuki) is fox possession, a historical belief about mental illness. Kanji next to each other form dictionary words rather than a sum of ideas. If nine tails are the idea, 九尾の狐 (kyuubi no kitsune), the nine-tailed fox, says it properly.
On script: 狐 is written the same in Japanese, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese, and the Mandarin reading is hú. In everyday Chinese, though, a fox is 狐狸 (húli), and 狐狸精 (húlijīng), fox spirit, is a common insult for a seductive woman. A Chinese reader brings that association with them.
Nine mostly open strokes hold up well at moderate sizes; the tight spot is the inside of 瓜. Our kitsune page covers what a fox tattoo means as an image rather than a word.
Confirm with a native speaker before you ink. You can preview the character in vertical and horizontal layouts with the Japanese Tattoo Generator, and read the wider background in our guide to japanese tattoo meanings.
Related Kanji
For more animal characters and their stories, browse the kanji library.
Sources and Further Reading
- 常用漢字表 (Cabinet Notice No. 2 of 2010), Agency for Cultural Affairs the 2,136 Jōyō kanji, which do not include 狐
- 子の名に使える漢字, Ministry of Justice only Jōyō and name-list kanji may be used in a child's given name
- Unihan database entry for 狐 (U+72D0), Unicode Consortium Kangxi radical 94; eight strokes in the Chinese count, 犭 plus a six-stroke 瓜 in the Adobe-Japan1 data
- 狐, Digital Daijisen and Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (Kotobank) readings, the 794 glossary, Japan's two subspecies, ketsune, fried tofu, compounds
- FAQ, Fushimi Inari Taisha foxes as Inari's invisible byakkosan messengers, and the number of Inari shrines
FAQ
How do you say fox in Japanese?
You say kitsune, written 狐. Three short beats, “kee-tsoo-neh,” with the first vowel often whispered. It is the word for the real animal and for the fox spirits of folklore alike. In a few literary compounds the character takes its on’yomi ko, as in 白狐 (byakko), a white fox.
What is the kanji for fox?
The kanji for fox is 狐: the animal radical 犭 on the left and 瓜 (melon) on the right, which supplies the sound rather than the meaning. Japanese dictionaries count nine strokes and Chinese ones eight, because Japanese writes the melon in six. It is not a Jōyō kanji, so it is not taught in school.
What is the Japanese symbol for fox?
In writing, the symbol is the kanji 狐. In culture, the fox is the symbol of Inari, the deity of rice and prosperity, and stone fox pairs guard Inari shrines across Japan. The white fox mask worn at festivals and the nine-tailed fox of folklore are the other images people mean by it.
How do you write kitsune in Japanese?
狐 is the kanji. きつね in hiragana is common in children’s books and on menus, where it means fried tofu, as in きつねうどん. キツネ in katakana is the scientific and documentary spelling for the animal, because Japanese writes species names in katakana. All three are pronounced kitsune.
Does kitsune mean fox or fox spirit?
Both, and Japanese does not separate them. Kitsune is simply the word for fox, the animal. The fox spirits of folklore are foxes too, just old and powerful ones. When a distinction is needed, Japanese uses phrases like 白狐 (byakko) for a sacred white fox or 九尾の狐 for the nine-tailed fox.
Is 狐 the same character in Chinese?
Yes. Japanese, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese all write 狐, and the Mandarin reading is hú. The stroke count differs, nine in Japan and eight in China, because of how the melon element is counted. Everyday Chinese calls a fox 狐狸 (húli), and 狐狸精 is an insult for a seductive woman.