Meaning & readings
swim
On’yomi エイ
Kun’yomi およ.ぐ
Origin
This character combines water on the left with the component 永 on the right, which serves as a sound hint for pronunciation rather than meaning. The water radical makes sense because swimming inherently involves water, so the character's meaning is established through that visual element. The 永 component contributes the sound value, helping readers know how to pronounce the character. Together, water plus this phonetic indicator creates a character that both shows what the action involves and hints at how it's pronounced.
Components
- 氵
- 永
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
- 85
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1223 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+06CF3