く

• IPA^(key): [kɯ̟]

Derived in the Heian period from writing the man'yōgana kanji 久 in the cursive sōsho style.

く • (ku) 

1. The hiragana syllable く (ku). Its equivalent in katakana is ク (ku). It is the eighth syllable in the gojūon order; its position is か行う段 (ka-gyō u-dan, “row ka, section u”).

Do not confuse it with the kana iteration mark 〱 which is sometimes used in vertical text.

• ぐ (gu)

• (Hiragana) 平仮名; あぁ, いぃ, うぅゔ, えぇ, おぉ, かゕが, きぎ, くぐ, けゖげ, こご, さざ, しじ, すず, せぜ, そぞ, ただ, ちぢ, つっづ, てで, とど, な, に, ぬ, ね, の, はばぱ, ひびぴ, ふぶぷ, へべぺ, ほぼぽ, ま, み, む, め, も, やゃ, ゆゅ, よょ, ら, り, る, れ, ろ, わゎ, ゐ, ゑ, を, ん, ー, ゝ, ゞ, ゟ

(The following entries do not have a page created for them yet: 工, 久, 供, 駆, 駒, 狗, 懼.)

Some obsolete inflections.

く • (ku) 

1. 消: disappear
2. 来: come

/-u aku//-ru aku//-ki aku/ → /(-a)ku//-raku//-keku/

Originally a compound of the 連体形(れんたいけい) (rentaikei) of verbs and adjectives and 所(あく) (aku); 上代特殊仮名遣 (jōdai tokushu kanazukai) contractions of vowel clusters caused it to be reanalyzed as the suffixes:

• く (ku) following
  • 未然形(みぜんけい) (mizenkei) of 四段活用(よだんかつよう) (yodan katsuyō) and ラ行変格活用(ぎょうへんかくかつよう) (ra-gyō henkaku katsuyō) verbs
• らく (raku) following
  • 終止形(しゅうしけい) (shūshikei) of 二段活用(にだんかつよう) (nidan katsuyō), サ行変格活用(ぎょうへんかくかつよう) (sa-gyō henkaku katsuyō), カ行変格活用(ぎょうへんかくかつよう) (ka-gyō henkaku katsuyō), and ナ行変格活用(ぎょうへんかくかつよう) (na-gyō henkaku katsuyō) verbs
  • 未然形(みぜんけい) (mizenkei) or 連用形(れんようけい) (ren'yōkei) of 一段活用(いちだんかつよう) (ichidan katsuyō) verbs
• けく (keku) following the stem of adjectives.

The use of this nominalizer is called ク語法(ごほう) (ku-gohō).

• らく (raku)
• けく (keku)

く • (-ku) 

1. (obsolete) A nominalizing suffix in Old Japanese.