音読み

Etymology
Compound of. Originally referred to the sounds (i.e. pronunciations) to use when reading Chinese text, as opposed to the meanings of these Chinese words in Japanese (called or ).

Noun

 * 1)  the reading of a Japanese word written in kanji that is roughly based on the pronunciation of the kanji characters in the originating Chinese lect at the time the word was introduced into Japanese

Usage notes
As words written in kanji were brought to Japan at different times rather than all at once, each 音読み can be categorized as, , or , among other subcategories, depending on the originating variety. Thus, the same kanji may be used to mean different things depending on the reading, reflecting the differences between the source Chinese varieties, such as which means  when read with the  pronunciation, but means  when read with the  pronunciation.

音読み loosely corresponds to, with the former signifying the reading and the latter signifying the word itself.

Verb

 * 1) to use the on'yomi of a word, to read a word using the pronunciation based on the original Chinese pronunciation