悦 (yuè) · pleased, happy, delighted

Meanings

1 pleased
2 happy
3 delighted
4 joyful

Characters

悦

yuè

pleased; delighted

Examples

HSK 6

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.

HSK 7-9

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)

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 (left-side 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 the character as something felt rather than something done.

phonetic

兑 duì

to exchange

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