what is difference between 笑う and 嗤う? - Feed Post by Raminta
what is difference between 笑う and 嗤う?
posted by Raminta
Comments 4
They both mean to laugh(warau), however the 1st kanji is most used.
To only just say 笑う version is used most is a bit of an understatement, 笑.
嗤 isn't a Common Use kanji, it's not even one of the ~3000 kanji specifically taught in Japanese schools. It looks like it means something like "laughing at someone" (especially in a horrible way, like ridiculing/sneering at people). The right hand part of the kanji is 蚩 which means things like "worm, ignorant, stupid, foolish, ugly".
わらう covers a broad range of meanings: a friendly smile, giggling, laughing, and sneering at people. It may seem like you could just randomly choose to use either kanji, but I think the 嗤う version is more often reserved for usages closer to that kanji's meaning and gives a different impression to the far more commonly used 笑う.
I've never, ever, ever seen 嗤う. ～。～
But, apparently, the WWWJDIC online dictionary, under the voice 笑う has: (esp. 嗤う) to sneer; to ridicule- @DS25 Oh wow, that backs up what I said pretty well. The three selected example sentences listed underneath demonstrate a situation where 嗤う is used instead too.
I was using a slightly different source based on WWWJDIC which didn't mention the kanji to use in each situation. So I had just looked up the meanings of the kanji and ran a quick Google search for "嗤う" to try to learn from pages where it had been written. To be honest, I wasn't completely certain about my conclusion. It would have made things much simpler if I'd checked out WWWJDIC itself from the start. :D
