Meaning & readings
deviate, idleness, leisure, miss the mark, evade, elude, parry, diverge
On’yomi イツ
Kun’yomi そ.れる、そ.らす、はぐ.れる
Nanori いっ、はや、へん
Origin
This character combines two elements: the radical on the left side meaning "movement" or "going," and 免 on the right, which originally depicted an animal escaping or evading. Together they create the sense of movement away from something—to deviate, slip away, or miss the mark. The visual structure conveys the idea of straying from a path or eluding something, which over time came to encompass meanings like idleness and leisure, since time off represents a deviation from one's duties. The repeated pairing of "movement" with "evasion" reinforced the character's connection to straying and escaping.
Components
- 免
- ⻌
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 162
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1524 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+09038