立つ
Meaning in Englishstand, stand up
Animated kanji stroke order
Word context
What it means
立つ means to rise from a seated or prone position and stand upright; it is an intransitive verb used for people and objects that become vertical.
Main meanings
- rise to one's feet from a sitting, kneeling, or lying position
- become upright or vertically positioned, as a pillar, tree, or monument
- stand up in readiness or in a figurative sense
How to use it
Used in everyday conversation and formal writing to indicate the action of standing up or remaining upright; as an intransitive verb it describes the subject itself rising, and it conjugates across tense, negation, and politeness, commonly appearing in te-form 立って and in phrases that express readiness or onset.
Variants and close terms
- 座る (suwaru) — to sit; antonym
- 立ち上がる (tachiagaru) — to stand up; related form
Composition
- 立: stand
- つ: okurigana that inflects the kanji into a verb form
Etymology
立 expresses the act of standing; tatsu is the kun reading; the kanji's form depicts a person upright, and its shapes have evolved toward the modern glyph.
Origin
Native Japanese verb attested in Old Japanese with wide historical use; it is not borrowed from Chinese for its core verb meaning and appears throughout classical and modern texts.
Word class
Verb (五段動詞, 自動詞)