Meaning & readings
urge, force, imminent, spur on
On’yomi ハク
Kun’yomi せま.る
Nanori さこ、せ、せこ、はさ、はさま、はざま
Origin
The character 迫 combines the "road" or "movement" radical (⻌) on the left, which signals this word relates to travel or progress, with 白 on the right serving as a sound hint for the pronunciation. The visual idea is of something pressing forward along a path, which led to the meaning of forcing or urging someone onward. The sense of something drawing near or becoming imminent comes from this same image of relentlessly advancing closer. Over time, these meanings of pressure and urgency became the main senses of the character.
Components
- 白
- ⻌
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
- 162
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #773 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+08FEB