Meaning & readings

ardent, violent, vehement, furious, severe, extreme

On’yomi レツ
Kun’yomi はげ.しい
Nanori やす

Origin

This character combines fire (灬) at the bottom with , which serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation. The fire radical makes the meaning clear: the character refers to something intense and burning, like flames that are fierce and uncontrolled. By adding the fire radical to , the character came to express the idea of ardent, violent, or extreme intensity—as if describing an intense, blazing fire. The component itself doesn't contribute meaning here, but rather guides speakers toward the correct sound when reading the character.

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

10 strokes

Components

  • sound hint top
  • radical bottom

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

Common words

  • 強烈 きょうれつ strong; intense
  • 鮮烈 せんれつ vivid; striking
  • 壮烈 そうれつ heroic; brave
  • 痛烈 つうれつ severe; bitter
  • 熱烈 ねつれつ ardent; passionate
  • 猛烈 もうれつ fierce; intense
  • 烈震 れっしん disastrous earthquake

Reference

Strokes
10
Kangxi radical
86
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1397 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+070C8