悦 (yuè): pleased

Meanings

1 pleased
2 happy
3 delighted
4 joyful

Characters

悦

yuè

pleased / delighted

Examples

有朋自远方来，不亦悦乎？

Yǒupéngzìyuǎnfānglái, bù yì yuè hū?

Is it not delightful to have friends come from afar? (Confucius, Analects)

她脸上露出悦色，显然很高兴。

Tā liǎnshàng lùchū yuè sè, xiǎnrán hěn gāoxìng.

A look of delight appeared on her face; she was clearly very happy.

Tips

history

悦 is the classical Chinese character for 'pleased / joyful.' It appears in the opening lines of the Confucian Analects (论语): 学而时习之，不亦说乎 — where 说 is an archaic variant of 悦. In modern Chinese 高兴 or 快乐 are far more common for everyday happiness.

Components

radical

忄 xīn

heart (radical form of 心)

Heart radical on the left — the side-form of 心. It files 悦 in the emotion family with 怕 fear, 怀 hold, 情 feeling. Joy is a state of the heart, so the radical does the obvious semantic job — marking 悦 as something felt rather than something done.

phonetic

兑 duì

to exchange (here phonetic)

Right side 兑 supplies the sound — duì shifted to yuè in 悦's reading. Originally 兑 itself meant 'to please; to enjoy', and 悦 was a clarifying form once 兑 drifted toward 'exchange'. So 兑 is doing double duty here: phonetic clue and faded semantic ancestor.