Meaning & readings
evade, avoid, avert, ward off, shirk, shun
On’yomi ヒ
Kun’yomi さ.ける、よ.ける
Origin
This character combines a left-side component meaning "to go" or "movement" with a right-side sound hint. The sound component "辟" tells you roughly how to pronounce the character — it doesn't contribute the meaning. Together, the left side suggests the action of moving or going, while the overall character developed the meaning of moving away from or evading something. Think of it as the idea of moving oneself out of the way to avoid something.
Components
- 辟
- ⻌
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 16
- Kangxi radical
- 162
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #756 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+0907F