草 (kusa)

What it means

1. 1.

   lol. Written at the end of a message, or alone, to mark that something is funny.

2. 2.

   草生える — literally 'grass grows' — is the verbal version: 'that made me laugh'. 大草原 ('vast grassland') is the emphatic form.

Literally: Grass.

Examples with translations

• その言い訳は草

  That excuse is sending me.

  Note: Typed, not spoken. Saying 草 out loud is a joke about internet speech.

• 深夜に牛丼食べてる自分に草生える。

  Cracking myself up eating a rice bowl at 2am.

Where it comes from

A chain of substitutions. 笑い ('laughter') was abbreviated to 笑, then to the initial w, then repeated for emphasis — wwwww. A row of w characters looks like a line of grass sprouting, so the grass itself, 草, became the word. The etymology is entirely visual, which is why it has no spoken form.

First attested: around 2010

Other forms

Romanised as:

kusa