auxiliary N2 common casualpolitewritten
〜抜く — to do ~ all the way through (despite hardship)
〜抜く ・ ぬく
Builds on 連用形（ます形）
Meaning
- do ~ all the way through / ~ to the bitter end — push an action through to completion in spite of hardship or difficulty
Key sentence
苦しかったが、最後まで走り抜いた。
It was painful, but I ran all the way to the finish.
Formation
| Attaches to | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Verb (masu-stem) | V(stem) + 抜く | やる → やり抜く / 耐える → 耐え抜く / 生きる → 生き抜く |
Examples
彼は厳しい戦争の時代を生き抜いた。
He survived all the way through the harsh era of war.
どんなに辛くても、この仕事をやり抜く。
No matter how hard it gets, I'll see this job through to the end.
最後まで考え抜いた末の結論だ。
This is the conclusion I reached after thinking it through exhaustively.
When you can't use it
- 抜く carries a sense of struggle overcome, so it pairs with verbs that involve effort or endurance (耐える, 戦う, 走る, 生きる). A casual, effortless action doesn't take 抜く.
Easily confused with
〜通す 通す stresses staying consistent — holding one course or stance unchanged to the end (守り通す = 'keep protecting'). 抜く stresses pushing through difficulty to reach the end (耐え抜く = 'endure to the bitter end'). 〜切る 切る is the neutral 'do completely / use up' (食べ切る). 抜く adds that getting to the end took real effort or hardship (戦い抜く = 'fight all the way through').
Notes
- Distinct from the standalone verb 抜く ('to pull out / extract'). The '手を抜く' idiom ('cut corners') is unrelated to this suffix.
See 〜抜く in real sentences
Jengo shows 〜抜く the way you actually meet it: inside real Japanese sentences, so it sticks instead of staying an abstract rule.
Study it in JengoSources Compiled from published Japanese grammar references.