苛める
いじめる
ijimeru
= to bully; to torment; to be hard on
いじめる is a transitive ru-verb meaning to bully, torment, or treat someone harshly. While its noun form いじめ has become a widely recognized term in Japanese society, the verb itself covers a range of intensity — from playground cruelty to affectionate teasing between friends.
いじめる describes the act of repeatedly causing suffering or distress to someone in a weaker position, whether physically, verbally, or socially. At its most serious, it refers to sustained bullying behavior. However, the word also appears in lighter, informal contexts to describe playful teasing or pestering — for example, joking that you are “bullying” a pet by not giving it a treat. This range of tone means context is essential: the same verb can carry real moral weight in a school setting or be used humorously among close friends. In formal writing and news reporting, いじめる tends to refer strictly to the harmful sense.
A key point for learners is the wide tonal gap within the same verb. When a parent tells a child not to mistreat animals, the meaning is unambiguously serious. But a friend pleading with you not to be so hard on them while you tease implies no real harm at all. Misreading the tone can lead to awkward misunderstandings. Also note that いじめる is transitive, so it always takes a direct object marked by を: 〇〇をいじめる. The related noun いじめ is used independently and appears frequently in news headlines and educational materials.
The kanji 苛 carries the core meaning of harshness and severity. It is composed of 艹 (grass radical, くさかんむり) over 可, with 可 lending a phonetic hint while the overall character has come to mean “to oppress” or “to be cruel.” In everyday writing, Japanese speakers almost always use the hiragana spelling いじめる rather than the kanji form 苛める, so if you see 苛 in a text it is usually in formal or literary contexts. The noun いじめ is virtually never written with this kanji in modern usage.
Everyday use
動物をいじめてはいけない。
Doubutsu wo ijimete wa ikenai.
You must not mistreat animals.
Casual / Social Media
そんなにいじめないでよ、ちょっとからかっただけじゃない。
Sonna ni ijime naide yo, chotto karakatta dake ja nai.
Don’t be so hard on me — I was only teasing a little.
Formal / Cultural context
学校でのいじめを根絶するために、地域全体で取り組む必要がある。
Gakkou de no ijime wo konzetsu suru tame ni, chiiki zentai de torikumu hitsuyou ga aru.
The entire community needs to work together to eradicate bullying at school.
In Japan, いじめ (bullying) became a prominent social issue from the 1980s onward and remains a subject of sustained public concern. The government enacted the Act for the Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying (いじめ防止対策推進法) in 2013, requiring schools to establish prevention measures and reporting systems. Because of this legislative and media attention, the word いじめ carries significant weight in Japanese public discourse, and educators, parents, and students are generally familiar with its formal definition.
Despite its serious connotations, いじめる can function at a much lighter register in casual speech. Japanese speakers sometimes use it to describe harmless teasing between friends or even the idea of “making a pet suffer” by withholding a treat. This informal usage — closer to English “picking on” someone in a playful way — is common enough that learners should pay attention to the relationship between the speakers and the overall tone of the conversation before interpreting the severity of the word.