娘

daughter; young woman; girl

Kanji 1846

See how to use 娘 as "daughter" versus as "young woman." Find out what it means when people say "A bug landed on the daughter-in-a-box" or how a young woman can figuratively be a signboard. Learn why the Japanese would write "parent and daughter" in an ateji way, rather than as 親子. See how various performers and manga characters have connections to 娘, as do Amazonian troops!

Revision history:

Feb. 7, 2022: 

• p. 2, Etymology Box: Updated the Henshall etymology and deleted an etymology from a source that no longer exists online.
• p. 6: Slightly updated Henshall's etymology of 婿.
• p. 9: Added a note that Kittredge Cherry has come out with an updated version of her book but that my page numbers refer to the original edition.
• p. 14: Added a link to the Kanshudo games.

Apr. 3, 2015: p. 4: I reworked the wisteria dolls caption a bit.

Dec. 5, 2014: p. 3: In the sample sentence 彼らは大部分若い娘たちだった, I changed a word in the vocabulary list from 大部 (たいぶ) to 大部分 (だいぶぶん).

May 16, 2014: Originally published.