踹
chuài · HSK 7
to kick
🦶 CHEW-EYE — your foot chews the ground with each stomp
The sound chuài echoes chew-eye: a foot grinding down on something. The character has 足 (foot) on the left, confirming this is all about forceful leg action — kicking, stamping, treading.
踹 — foot 足 + 端 (duān, phonetic)
踹 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The foot radical 足 carries the meaning, since the character refers to actions done with the foot — kicking or trampling. The right side 端 supplies the sound, originally close to 'chuài'. The modern sense 'to kick' developed naturally from this foot-based meaning.