As we saw last week, 刺 (SHI, sa(su), sa(saru), sa(shi), sashi, toge: to stab, pierce, prick, sting; thorn; business card) primarily means “to stab,” so it plays a role in many brutal words. Examining this kanji, you can quickly have your fill of stabbings, puncture wounds, and the like:

刺し傷 (sashikizu: a stab; puncture wound)     to stab + wound

Sample Sentence with 刺し傷 …

刺し通す (sashitōsu: to stab, pierce, run (a sword) through)
     stabbing + to run through

This uses the same kanji as a term we saw last time: 刺を通じる (shi o tsūjiru: to present one’s business card, business card + to transmit). But the meanings couldn’t be more different!

止めを刺す (todome o sasu: to put an end to; finish by a stab in the neck)     finishing blow + to stab

Sample Sentences with 止めを刺す …

You might think gory stabbings tend to happen in a dark underworld that you’ll never enter. If only that were true. A closer look at 刺 words reveals that humans and animals constantly stab each other. It’s the law of the jungle.

Take, for instance, insects. Have you ever been bitten 20 times in a single summer night? As Rambo once put it, they drew first blood, and second, and third, and then they kept on going, the greedy little buggers.

虫刺され (mushisasare: insect bite, bug bite; sting)
     insect + to be stabbed

蜂に刺される (hachi ni sasareru: to be stung by a bee)
     bee + to be stabbed

Sasareru is the passive form of sasu (to stab, pierce) and means “to be stabbed.” This passive form appears in both expressions above (though sasare has been truncated in the first word, a noun). The “insect” kanji, 虫, also appears in each term. It’s an autonomous character in the first, whereas it has become the “insect” radical in 蜂 (hachi: bee).

Most of the time, humans are the ones stabbing animals. That’s true when we catch fish and slice them into sashimi:

刺身を作る (sashimi o tsukuru: to slice (raw fish))
     sashimi + meat, flesh + to prepare (food)

A Sashimi Term That Cuts to the Bone …

Hooking a fish and then slicing it might qualify as a double piercing-stabbing, though this does not appear in the written language. The verb in 刺身を作る is “to prepare (food),” not to “pierce” or “stab.” Moreover, “fish hook” is 釣り針 (tsuribari: fish + hook), which is full of finely honed metal (金) and seems to have little to do with bloody assaults.

As if it weren’t enough that we pass metal through fish once at sea and a second time in the kitchen, we do it a third time at the table if we’re using forks:

突き刺す (tsukisasu: to stab, pierce, thrust)     to thrust + to stab

彼は魚にフォークを突き刺した。
Kare wa sakana ni fōku o tsukisashita.
He stuck the fish with his fork.

彼 (kare: he)
魚 (sakana: fish)

But from time to time, animals get revenge for all this skewering; they stick it to us in the throat:

のどに刺さった骨 (nodo ni sasatta hone: bone stuck in one’s throat)

骨 (hone: bone)

As my husband would say, this is a suboptimal situation. Here we’re seeing the verb 刺さる (sasaru: to stick; be stuck).

Sample Sentence with 刺さる …

On top of all this, many humans pierce themselves to create animal images on their own skin. After all, tattoos are another form of piercing, as the characters reveal:

刺青 (irezumi: tattoo)     to pierce + blue

Japanese tattoos once involved piercing the skin and inserting blue dye.

The yomi is irezumi? We haven’t seen that 刺 can be read as ire, and indeed it can’t, except in ateji situations. Here’s another way to write irezumi (and one that’s more consistent with the usual yomi of the characters):

入れ墨 (irezumi: tattoo)     to enter + ink

As Wikipedia indicates, the nuances of irezumi change slightly, depending on which of the seven (!) kanji writings you use.

More on Japanese Tattoos …

If all this violence has gotten you down, it’s high time to cheer yourself up with a Verbal Logic Quiz. Enjoy!

Verbal Logic Quiz …