When “欲” fills a head
Why it is in the set
Most of the 36 kanji name a specific thing: sleep, money, cats. This one names the engine underneath all of them. It is in the set because a head can be full of wanting without being full of any one thing, and that is a real state people recognise. It is also the most common way a head fills up when someone answers the five questions honestly rather than flatteringly, which is a small joke in itself.
What a head full of it looks like
Not greed. Restlessness. The screen you scroll without looking for anything, the cart you fill and never buy from, the evening where nothing you do is quite the thing you wanted to be doing. When 欲 comes out on top the reading is usually about a want with no object attached to it yet.
Words that use it
食欲 (shokuyoku, appetite), 意欲 (iyoku, drive or motivation), 欲求 (yokkyuu, a need or urge), 無欲 (muyoku, free of wants), 欲張り (yokubari, a greedy person). The last one is what a Japanese child calls a friend who takes two of the cakes.
Kanji it turns up with
It sits next to 食 (food) and 金 (money) in the set, and heads that lean on 欲 often have those two close behind. When 欲 leads and 無 (nothing) is second, the reading tends to be about wanting something and not being able to name it.
Where “欲” comes from
The right-hand part is 欠, a person with an open mouth, leaning forward. The left part 谷 gives the sound. Put together it is a mouth opening toward something it does not have.
It carries no judgement. Japanese uses it for appetite (食欲), ambition (意欲) and greed (貪欲) alike. Which one it means comes entirely from the character next to it.
It is also the character in 欲しい (hoshii), the everyday word for “I want that”. A child points at a toy and says it.
A line you might get for “欲”
“Wanting, in no particular direction. Just wanting.”
Count the “欲” in your own headOthers in “Appetites”
“欲” is filed under “Appetites”. These are the rest of that group.
The 36 kanji
This is entirely a joke and has nothing to do with any real person.