曜 — Day of the Week

Meaning

The kanji 曜 means day of the week — and few kanji are as immediately practical. Schedules, appointments, school timetables, work plans: all of them rely on this character. Every day of the week, Monday through Sunday, contains 曜 in its name. Learn this one kanji and seven essential words come with it.

曜 also carries an older meaning: shining or brilliance, applied to celestial bodies. That sense is baked into the day names. Each day is named after a natural element — sun (日), moon (月), fire (火), water (水), wood (木), gold (金), earth (土) — and the 曜 in each name reads as "the shining [element] day." Sunday is the sun's shining day. Friday is gold's shining day.

At 18 strokes, 曜 is one of the more intricate kanji in the Grade 2 curriculum. The left side is the radical 日 (sun/day), directly tying the character to daylight. On the right, the component suggests wings or feathers fanning outward — rays of light spreading from the sun. Japanese children learn it in second grade, so it counts as foundational. JLPT N4 includes it because practical command — reading calendars, handling scheduling conversations — demands more than passive recognition.

Readings

On'yomi (音読み) — Chinese-derived readings

曜 has one on'yomi: ヨウ (yō). It appears in every day-of-the-week word, making it the only reading you realistically need. Borrowed from the Chinese pronunciation, ヨウ is fully naturalized in Japanese compounds.

In modern Japanese, 曜 is almost always read ヨウ. Key examples:

• 曜日ようび (yōbi) — day of the week (the base word for asking or stating what day it is)
• 月曜げつよう (getsuyō) — Monday (short form, common in speech)
• 金曜きんよう (kin'yō) — Friday (short form, very common in conversation)

Kun'yomi (訓読み) — Native Japanese readings

曜 has no commonly used kun'yomi in modern Japanese. Classical texts occasionally use かがや(く) (kagayaku), meaning "to shine brilliantly," but this is a rarity you will almost certainly never encounter. For JLPT N4 and everyday use, ヨウ is the only reading that matters.

Common Words & Compounds

The seven days of the week are the core vocabulary for this kanji — memorize them as a group. Beyond those, a few useful scheduling expressions round things out.

Days of the Week:

• 日曜日にちようび (nichiyōbi) — Sunday ("sun shining day")
• 月曜日げつようび (getsuyōbi) — Monday ("moon shining day")
• 火曜日かようび (kayōbi) — Tuesday ("fire shining day")
• 水曜日すいようび (suiyōbi) — Wednesday ("water shining day")
• 木曜日もくようび (mokuyōbi) — Thursday ("wood shining day")
• 金曜日きんようび (kin'yōbi) — Friday ("gold/metal shining day")
• 土曜日どようび (doyōbi) — Saturday ("earth/soil shining day")

General & Useful Expressions:

• 曜日ようび (yōbi) — day of the week
• 毎週まいしゅう月曜げつよう (maishū getsuyō) — every Monday
• 来週らいしゅうの金曜きんよう (raishū no kin'yō) — next Friday

Example Sentences

Related Kanji

• 明 — Bright, Clear, Light (Kanji N4)
• 昼 — Daytime, Noon, Midday (Kanji N4)
• 夜 — Night, Evening (Kanji N4)
• 短 — Short, brief, defect (Kanji N4)
• 地 — Ground, Earth, Land (Kanji N4)
• 近 — Near, Close, Recent (Kanji N4)

Memory Tip

Find 日 on the left side of 曜 — that's the sun/day radical. The sprawling right-hand component looks like rays fanning outward, light spreading from the sun across the sky. That image ties the character to its meaning: a shining day, a celestial day. Each time you write 月曜日げつようび or 金曜日きんようび, you are writing "the moon's shining day" or "gold's shining day." Once 曜 reads as "shining day" rather than just another stroke-heavy character, the days of the week tend to stick.