Meaning & readings
char, hurry, impatient, irritate, burn, scorch, singe
On’yomi ショウ
Kun’yomi こ.げる、こ.がす、こ.がれる、あせ.る、じ.れる、じ.らす
Origin
The character combines a bird (隹) above with fire (灬) below. When a bird is exposed to fire, it gets charred and burned, which directly shows the idea of scorching or charring. The image of something being burnt by flames also led to the related meaning of feeling heated emotions like impatience or irritation. Over time, all these burning-related senses—literal charring, scorching, and figurative emotional heat—attached themselves to this single character.
Components
- 隹
- 灬
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 12
- Kangxi radical
- 86
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #973 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+07126