Meaning & readings

shout, exclaim, yell

On’yomi キョウ
Kun’yomi さけ.ぶ

Origin

The character combines the mouth radical on the left, which signals that this character relates to sounds made by the mouth, with a sound-hint component 丩 on the right that suggests the pronunciation キョウ. Together, these elements create a character meaning to shout or yell — the mouth symbol carries the semantic weight, showing this is about vocal sounds, while the right component guides how the character should be pronounced. This is a typical pattern in Chinese characters where a meaningful element pairs with a pronunciation guide.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

6 strokes

Components

  • radical left
  • sound hint right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 叫び さけび shout; cry
  • 叫ぶ さけぶ to shout; to cry (out)
  • 絶叫 ぜっきょう scream; shriek
  • 叫び声 さけびごえ shout; yell

Reference

Strokes
6
Kangxi radical
30
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1426 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+053EB