Meaning & readings

assault, hit, beat, thrash

On’yomi オウ
Kun’yomi なぐ.る

Origin

The character combines a sound hint on the left with a meaning component on the right. The right side, 殳, is a classifier that depicts a weapon or stick used for striking, which directly connects to the meaning of hitting or beating. The left component serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation オウ, telling you roughly how to say the character rather than contributing to its meaning. Together, the stick-related visual element and the sound indicator combine to create a character that means to assault or strike someone.

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

8 strokes

Components

  • sound hint left
  • radical right

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

Common words

Reference

Strokes
8
Kangxi radical
79
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1622 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+06BB4