Meaning & readings

quick, fast

On’yomi ソク
Kun’yomi はや.い、はや-、はや.める、すみ.やか
Nanori

Origin

This character combines a motion-related component on the left (the "movement" radical, which appears in many words about going or changing) with the component on the right, which acts as a sound hint to indicate roughly how the character is pronounced. The left component establishes that this character deals with motion or action, while the right component tells you it should sound something like "soku." Together they create a character meaning "fast" or "quick" — the idea of swift movement.

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

10 strokes

Components

  • sound hint nyoc
  • radical bottom-left wrap

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

Common words

  • 加速 かそく acceleration; speeding up
  • 快速 かいそく high speed; rapidity
  • 急速 きゅうそく rapid (e.g. progress)
  • 減速 げんそく deceleration
  • 高速 こうそく high-speed; rapid
  • 時速 じそく speed (per hour)
  • 失速 しっそく stall
  • 迅速 じんそく (very) quick; rapid

Reference

Strokes
10
Kangxi radical
162
Grade
Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#576 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+0901F