あくどい

Taken apart

1. あ

   あ

   of uncertain meaning

2. +

3. くどい

   くどい

   repetitive, tedious, clunky, long-winded, insistent

Select a part to see every word so far that is taken apart with it.

In a sentence

We don't have the data for this section. The pinned Tatoeba export has no sentence with a translation that uses this word and passes our filter.

What Wiktionary says

Quoted line by line from Wiktionary's Etymology section for this reading, taken from one dated dump so it can't change underneath us. Nothing below is paraphrased.

• “First cited to 1694.”
• Hedged“Ultimate derivation is unclear.”
• Hedged“* One reference derives this from prefix あ (a, of uncertain meaning) + 諄い (kudoi, “repetitive, tedious, clunky, long-winded, insistent”).”
• “*: However, there is no apparent fitting prefix, only 亜 (a-, “sub-, -ous, -ite”, most often found in chemistry or biology).”
• Hedged“* Described in another source as deriving from 灰汁 (aku, “lye; harshness [as a characteristic of flavor or personality]”) + suffixing element どい (doi). This doi is probably from now-archaic adjective 利し・鋭し・疾し・敏し (toshi), modernized form とい (toi, “sharp, biting; fierce, vicious; fast, quick”).”
• Hedged“Considering the senses, this might be a case of separately derived homophones, or a case where separate partially-similar terms influenced the meaning.”

Source: Wiktionary: あくどい (dump of 2026-09-02), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Reading, meaning and part of speech from JMdict, and kanji readings from KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG).

What the labels mean

和語 Native Japanese

Words that were already Japanese before Chinese vocabulary arrived — usually written with kun'yomi and often short.

Compound

Two or more words or stems joined into one.

Derivation

A word built from a stem plus a suffix or prefix.

Origin unclear

Scholars disagree, or nobody knows.