Word.ws English Dictionary

okurigana

okurigana noun: in the Japanese language, the kana which follow a stem written with kanji, which record how that stem is inflected, and guides recognition of the appropriate kun'yomi reading (word stem associated with the kanji); for example, く (ku) and かべる (kaberu) in 浮(う)く (uk-u, “to float”, intransitive) and 浮(う)かべる (uk-aberu, “to float”, transitive), or む (mu) and きる (kiru) in 生(う)む (umu, “to birth”) and 生(い)きる (ikiru, “to live”). Perhaps analogous to -st, -nd in English 1st (first), 2nd (second).

Noun

okurigana (plural okurigana)

  1. In the Japanese language, the kana which follow a stem written with kanji, which record how that stem is inflected, and guides recognition of the appropriate kun'yomi reading (word stem associated with the kanji); for example, く (ku) and かべる (kaberu) in 浮(う)く (uk-u, “to float”, intransitive) and 浮(う)かべる (uk-aberu, “to float”, transitive), or む (mu) and きる (kiru) in 生(う)む (umu, “to birth”) and 生(い)きる (ikiru, “to live”). Perhaps analogous to -st, -nd in English 1st (first), 2nd (second).

Forms of okurigana

pluralokurigana

Origin of okurigana

From Japanese 送(おく)り仮名(がな) (okurigana).

Questions about okurigana

What does okurigana mean?
Okurigana means in the Japanese language, the kana which follow a stem written with kanji, which record how that stem is inflected, and guides recognition of the appropriate kun'yomi reading (word stem associated with the kanji); for example, く (ku) and かべる (kaberu) in 浮(う)く (uk-u, “to float”, intransitive) and 浮(う)かべる (uk-aberu, “to float”, transitive), or む (mu) and きる (kiru) in 生(う)む (umu, “to birth”) and 生(い)きる (ikiru, “to live”). Perhaps analogous to -st, -nd in English 1st (first), 2nd (second).
What part of speech is okurigana?
Okurigana is a noun.
What is the plural of okurigana?
The plural of okurigana is okurigana.

Words near okurigana in the dictionary

  1. Okuns
  2. okupukupu
  3. okuriashi
  4. okuridashi
  5. okurigake
  6. okurigana
  7. okurihikiotoshi
  8. okurinage
  9. okuritaoshi
  10. okuritsuridashi
  11. okuritsuriotoshi

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: okurigana (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “okurigana.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/okurigana. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.