Explore each form from the oldest known stage to today.
Historical forms are not available yet. The current form is shown as a reference.
The kanji 鋭 is a phono-semantic compound (形声文字) formed during the Bronze Script era. Its semantic component is 金 (metal/gold), indicating its association with metal objects. The phonetic component is 兌, which originally depicted a person (儿) speaking with an open mouth (八 and 口), conveying a sense of "exchange" or "quick passage." This phonetic element also imparts the core meaning of "sharpness" or "pointedness," suggesting something that penetrates or moves swiftly. Historically, the character evolved from the Oracle Bone Script, where 兌 was used independently to mean "sharp." The addition of the 金 radical occurred later as the character became specifically associated with metal weaponry, such as sharp spear and arrow tips. The script transitioned through Bronze Inscriptions (金文) and Seal Script (篆書), where its structure was standardized, before arriving at the modern form used in Clerical Script (隷書) and Kaisho (楷書). The character, along with the vast majority of the kanji system, was introduced to Japan from China between the 5th and 6th centuries CE, primarily via the Korean Peninsula. It was adopted into the Japanese writing system as part of the importation of Chinese literature, bureaucracy, and culture. An interesting linguistic note is that while 鋭 can carry a negative connotation like "acute" (as in pain) in Chinese, in Japanese its usage is more positively skewed, often found in words like 鋭い (surudoi - sharp, perceptive) and 鋭気 (eiki - keen enthusiasm), highlighting a subtle shift in semantic nuance after its adoption.