避く

Japanese

Etymology 1

From Old Japanese.

Cognate with 離く, 放く (saku, “to separate things, to put a space between things”), in turn cognate with 割く, 裂く (saku, “to split, to tear apart”, both transitive and intransitive), and 咲く (saku, “to bloom”).

The sense appears to have developed as to put a space between things → to keep at a distance → to avoid.

This saku form is the classical form of modern 避ける (sakeru).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

Verb

避(さ)く • (saku) transitive ^†nidan

1. to avoid, to dodge

Etymology 2

From Old Japanese. Appears in the Man'yōshū, completed some time after 759 CE.

Cognate with 横 (yoko, “side; sideways; to the side”).

The sense appears to have developed as to step or pull to one side → to avoid, or to exclude by pushing off to the side.

This yoku form is the classical form of modern 避ける (yokeru).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

Verb

避(よ)く • (yoku) transitive ^†nidan

1. to avoid, to dodge
2. to preemptively avoid something: to prevent
3. to push to the side, to exclude

Usage notes

This verb has exhibited three classical conjugation patterns in historical texts: 上二段活用 (kami nidan katsuyō, “upper bigrade conjugation”) where the verb stem ends in either -u or -i, 四段活用 (yodan katsuyō, “quadrigrade conjugation”) where the verb stem ends in -u, -a, -i, or -e, and 下二段活用 (shimo nidan katsuyō, “lower bigrade conjugation”) where the verb stem ends in either -u or -e. The shimo pattern arose in the Kamakura period or Muromachi period, later displacing the other two patterns to become the main form used in classical or literary Japanese.

References