What does "焼き" (sorry if i spelled it wrong) mean?


In Japanese, some foods end in "焼き". What does it mean? some examples: たこ焼き,
お好み焼き, 照り焼き, etc. I apologize if I miswrote any of these because I just
started learning Japanese. But what does the suffix "yaki" mean?




At the word level, 焼き means "bake(d)" or "grill(ed)". It works slightly
differently depending on whether it's used as a **prefix** and a **suffix**.

When 焼き is used as a **prefix** , it just literally means "grilled/baked ～".

  * 焼き魚 grilled fish
  * 焼きトウモロコシ grilled corn
  * 焼きおにぎり baked _onigiri_

But when 焼き is used as a **suffix** , it forms a specific (hot) food name
related to the word before it. The word before it can even be a place name or
a person name. Usually you cannot translate it like "baked/grilled ～".

  * 今川焼き [_Imagawayaki_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagawayaki) (not "baked Imagawa")
  * たこ焼き [_takoyaki_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takoyaki) or "octopus ball" (not "grilled octopus")
  * 広島焼き Hiroshima-style [_okonomiyaki_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okonomiyaki) (not "baked Hiroshima")
  * すき焼き [_sukiyaki_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukiyaki) (not "baked shovel")
  * 山賊焼き _sanzokuyaki_ (not "baked bandits"; essentially a grilled chicken)
  * どら焼き [_dorayaki_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorayaki) (not "baked gong")
  * 目玉焼き sunny-side up fried egg (not "grilled eyeballs")

Most of these are unique to Japan and are not translatable. We can never
imagine what these actually look like correctly from the appearance of these
words. After all, 焼き as a suffix is just a convention to name a "hot" dish.

