当たる
Wanikani says to be on target (and a bunch of other synonyms)
Jisho has even more definitions, including: to shave, to feel a bite while fishing, to be a relative of a person, to confront, and more.
I feel like there is a common essence here to all of them, but I can’t quite boil down the meanings to find it. Is it really “to be on target”?
It’s hard to tell because Wanikani and Jisho don’t even totally agree with the meanings of 当
(although they’re in the same ballpark).
Like most verbs in Japanese, there are 2 words for the same action. In this case, we have 当たる and 当てる.
It does seem like the overall meaning is “to hit,” although it can be used in a very broad, abstract sense which results in an overwhelming number of J→E translations.
当たる is intransitive, meaning the verb merely describes the action of something. (e.g., something falls, something rises, something dies.)
当てる is transitive, meaning that the verb is applied by something to something else. (e.g., someone drops something, someone raises something, someone kills something.)
They nearly all feel like variations on the ‘being on target’ theme to me.
There are a few which are more like being hit in some way, or touching / hitting. Other than that the only odd one out seems to be the “being a relative of a person” meaning, which… ???
