炒る
いる · iru · JLPT N2 · verb-godan
to parch
🫘🔥 炒 = 火 fire + 少 a little: a little fire to dry-roast seeds
炒る means dry-roasting with no oil, the way sesame seeds become 炒りごま (irigoma). It uses the same kanji as Chinese 炒 chǎo, stir-fry. A verbal hook for the reading: iru, I roast.
炒 — fire radical 火 + 少 (few/phonetic)
炒 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The fire radical 火 on the left signals cooking with heat, while 少 (shǎo) on the right hints at the pronunciation. It originally described stir-frying small amounts of food quickly over a flame, the meaning it still carries today.