孤独
こどく · kodoku · JLPT N1 · noun
loneliness
🏝️ 孤 = lone/single, 独 = alone; kodoku = being solo on your own island
孤 (ko) means orphaned or lone, and 独 (doku) means alone or solo. Put together they describe being cut off from others, whether by choice (solitude) or by circumstance (loneliness).
独 — dog radical 犭 + 蜀 (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: 犭 (dog) gives the meaning, since dogs were thought to fight when kept together and so were often kept singly, while 蜀 supplies the sound. The original sense was 'solitary dog,' which broadened to 'alone, single, only.'