炎 means “flame, blaze, inflammation”

ほのお · honoo

Kun'yomi (Japanese reading)

ほのお

On'yomi (Chinese reading)

エン

JLPT N1 · Taught in secondary school · 8 strokes

The story

Fire (火) piled on fire (火): a blaze leaping high. 炎 is a flame, and 炎上, going up in flames, is also what a post does online when it draws a storm of anger; in medicine 炎 is inflammation, as in 肺炎, pneumonia.

Used in 炎 (honoo, flame), 炎上 (enjou, blaze/online backlash), and 肺炎 (haien, pneumonia)

More from Fire & Flood

• 噴 erupt
• 炉 hearth
• 惨 miserable
• 墜 crash
• 遭 meet with (trouble)
• 洪 flood
• 薪 firewood
• 氾 overflow
• 濫 overflow
• 災 disaster

Learn 炎 and more kanji free on Fuji Learning · All kanji

Readings from KANJIDIC2, © EDRDG, CC BY-SA.