Kanji 辿

辿 means to follow a route, clue, or sequence step by step.

In Japanese it is read たどる and usually appears as the verb 辿る: a mountain path, footprints or scent, a memory, an argument, or a life course. The word's earliest dictionary examples come from the Kokin Wakashū, 905–914, an early Japanese poetry anthology, with the sense of searching or feeling a way forward. 辿 is a variant of 㢟, a related form glossed in Chinese dictionaries as walking at an easy pace.

Later use widens that road into detective work: clues, memory, reasoning, imitation, practice, and a process heading toward an outcome. Modern Japanese often writes たどる in hiragana alone, so the kanji spelling spotlights the trail idea. For pursuit pick 追う; for going back to an origin pick 遡る.