Meaning & readings

cheerful, pleasant, agreeable, comfortable

On’yomi カイ
Kun’yomi こころよ.い
Nanori よし

Origin

The left component 忄 is a reduced form of the character for "heart" or "mind," which in Japanese characters often represents feelings and emotional states. The right component 夬 serves as a sound hint, telling you roughly how to pronounce the character. Together, the character's visual shape suggests a heart in a positive emotional state — the idea being that when your mind or heart feels this way, you experience the pleasant, comfortable, cheerful sensation that the character means.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

7 strokes

Components

  • radical left
  • sound hint right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 快い こころよい pleasant; agreeable
  • 快楽 かいらく pleasure
  • 快活 かいかつ cheerful; lively
  • 快感 かいかん pleasant feeling; pleasant sensation
  • 快挙 かいきょ brilliant achievement; spectacular feat
  • 快晴 かいせい clear weather; cloudless weather
  • 快速 かいそく high speed; rapidity
  • 快調 かいちょう good (condition); going well

Reference

Strokes
7
Kangxi radical
61
Grade
Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#1074 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+05FEB