Meaning & readings
step, trample, carry through, appraise, evade payment
Origin
This character combines the foot radical on the left, which signals that the character is about movement or action involving legs, with a sound-hint component on the right that suggests the pronunciation. The foot radical makes sense because the basic meaning is about stepping or treading on something with your feet. The other meanings—like carrying something through, evaluating, or evading—all grew from the concrete image of firmly stepping on or pressing down, which naturally extends to ideas of following through on something or making a judgment about it.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 足
- 沓
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 踏む ふむ to step on; to tread on
- 舞踏 ぶとう dance (esp. Western style); dancing
- 雑踏 ざっとう hustle and bustle; throng
- 踏切 ふみきり railway crossing; railroad crossing
- 足踏み あしぶみ stepping (in place); stamping (up and down)
- 踏み絵 ふみえ fumi-e; fumie
- 踏まえる ふまえる to be based on; to take into account
- 踏み切る ふみきる to take off; to jump
Reference
- Strokes
- 15
- Kangxi radical
- 157
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #723 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+08E0F