Meaning & readings

leap, dance, skip

On’yomi ヤク
Kun’yomi おど.る
Nanori おどり

Origin

This character combines the foot radical , which indicates movement of the body, with 翟 on the right side, which serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation. The foot radical makes sense because leaping and dancing are actions performed with the legs and feet. The 翟 component doesn't contribute a meaning — it's there mainly to guide how the character should be pronounced, similar to how many Japanese kanji pair a meaningful component with a phonetic clue. Together, the foot imagery and the sound indicator created a character that represents the dynamic, energetic movements of jumping and dancing.

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

21 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

  • 一躍 いちやく suddenly (rising to fame, etc.); instantly
  • 活躍 かつやく activity (esp. energetic or successful); great efforts
  • 跳躍 ちょうやく jump; leap
  • 飛躍 ひやく leap; jump
  • 躍起 やっき desperate; frantic
  • 躍進 やくしん making rapid progress; making great advances
  • 躍動 やくどう lively motion; throb
  • 躍如 やくじょ vivid; lifelike

Reference

Strokes
21
Kangxi radical
157
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#900 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+08E8D