烁

爍
shuò
verb #20,240

Meanings

  1. 1 to shine
  2. 2 to sparkle
  3. 3 to glitter

Examples

HSK 7-9
Xīngguāng shǎnshuò, měibúshèngshōu.
The starlight sparkled - a beauty beyond words.
HSK 7-9
Zhú huǒ zài fēng zhōng wēiwēi shǎnshuò.
The candlelight flickered gently in the wind.

Tips

register
烁 is a classical and literary character rarely used alone in modern Chinese. It almost always appears in the compound 闪烁, meaning 'to flicker' or 'to twinkle'. Encountering 烁 solo is a sign of classical or poetic text.

Components

radical
火 huǒ
fire
火 (the fire radical) supplies the sparkle and glitter - 烁 is what flames or stars do, flickering and shining. It groups with 闪 (flash), 灿 (brilliant) and 煜 (glow) in the family of light-emission chars.
phonetic
乐 lè
music; joy
乐 has the alternate reading yuè (music), and 烁 takes shuò by shifting the same phonetic stem found in 铄 (shuò, melt metal). The yuè/lè/shuò triple reading of 乐 is one of the more memorable sound-shift cases in the language.

Stroke Order

烁 shuò