暮
to live; earn a livelihood; grow dark; come to an end
Kanji 1789
Thank you for visiting this Character Home Page. Below you'll find a synopsis of the essay. If you wish to read the full text, the PDF of the essay is available for purchase to the right.
You might expect a kanji meaning “to live” to be exuberant. Instead, 暮 captures the gloomy sense of “We’re born with one foot in the grave." Still, you can use this very flexible kanji to talk about all these things: scraping by on a small income, what one does for a living, year-end gifts, twilight, living alone, being lost in thought, and spending all one's time doing something.
Revision history:
May 24, 2025: p. 5: Revised the translation of the 4th sample sentence to sound less disdainful!
Jan. 10, 2025: p. 1, Character Profile: Deleted the line "Learned in junior high school in Japan," as I'm phasing that out.
Sept. 28, 2023: p. 11: I had previously referred to いっぺ食べてけっちゃ as a "word." I've now fixed that.
Mar. 13, 2021:
- p. 2: Added the new Henshall etymology.
- p. 18: Added a link to the Kanshudo games.
Dec. 23, 2016: Made small edits to the photo caption on p. 16.
Feb. 21, 2014: Originally published.
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