noun:

• Imperial New Year's Lectures (ceremony in which the emperor and members of the imperial family Their Majesties listen to expert lectures in the fields of human, social and natural sciences)

adjective:

• painful; difficult; tough; hard
• distressing; (psychologically) difficult; stressful; awkward (e.g. position)
• straitened (circumstances); tight (financial situation); needy; struggling
• strained (interpretation, explanation, etc.); lame (e.g. excuse); forced (e.g. smile); far-fetched

auxiliary adjective / adjective:

• hard to do; unpleasant - after -masu stem of verb; often ぐるしい ➜ 寝苦しい【ねぐるしい】・見苦しい【みぐるしい】

noun:

• make-or-break game in a go or shogi tournament
• ozeki-ranked wrestler being in danger of losing his rank if he fails to win 8 or more bouts in a 15-day tournament - Sumo term

noun:

• an offering of tea and hot water made to Buddha or the spirit of the deceased
• a tea infusion; tea and hot water
• tea ceremony ➜ 茶の湯

noun:

• Shinto ritual in which a shaman or priest soaks bamboo grass in boiling water and sprinkles the water on worshippers (originally a form of divination, later a purification ceremony, now primarily used to pray for good health) ➜ 巫女【みこ】

noun:

• palace room for government officials or ladies in waiting
• room inside a palace or private estate allocated to employees; person living in such a room
• boarding house for trainee administrators (Ritsuryo period) ➜ 大学寮

noun:

• thank you gift; gift given as thanks for a favor or for attending a funeral, etc.
• gift sent from a locality to a tax payer as part of the "furusato nozei" tax scheme ➜ ふるさと納税

noun:

• the two sects of Buddhism introduced to Japan during the Heian period (Tiantai and Shingon) and the six sects introduced during the Nara period ➜ 南都六宗

noun:

• staying awake on the eve of the 57th day of the sexagenary cycle (to prevent the three worms from reporting one's wrongdoings and shortening one's lifespan), while worshipping Sakra, the Blue-Faced Vajra, or Sarutahiko ➜ 三尸

noun:

• rite seeing off the gods on their way to Izumo Shrine (held on the last night of the ninth lunar month and first night of the tenth lunar month) ➜ 神迎え
• exorcism

noun:

• Suffering, Source of Suffering Desire, The Cessation of Suffering, The Way Leading to the Cessation of Suffering (The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism) - Buddhism term ➜ 四諦

expression / adjective:

• it can't be helped; it is inevitable; nothing can be done; there's no point (in doing something); there's no reason (to do something)

noun / ~する noun / ~の noun:

• reverse movement; retrogression; going backwards; moving in the wrong direction; running counter to (e.g. the laws of nature); running against (e.g. the tide of the times) Antonym: 順行
• retrogradation; retrogression - Astronomy term

noun:

• heavenly god; heavenly gods - also pronounced てんしん
• spirit of Sugawara no Michizane
• Tenmangu shrine (dedicated to Michizane's spirit) ➜ 天満宮
• pit of a dried plum; dried plum - colloquialism ➜ 梅干し
• tenjin hairstyle - abbreviation ➜ 天神髷
• prostitute of the second-highest class (Edo period)

noun / ~する noun / ~の noun:

• cooking for oneself; cooking one's own food; doing one's own cooking; making food oneself; self-catering
• scanning a book or magazine to create an ebook by oneself

noun:

• enshrinement of two or more deities in one building of a shrine; shrine building dedicated to two or more deities

noun:

• striking sparks with flint and steel or by rubbing sticks together (usu. to start a fire); fire lit by sparks from flint and steel, etc. ➜ 鑽る
• Shinto fire-purification ceremony - Shintō term

noun:

• financially scraping by; meagre existence (meager); hand to mouth existence
• living one's life without plan; living life day-by-day; taking life one day at a time

noun:

• truths of the cessation of suffering and of the way to the cessation of suffering - Buddhism term ➜ 道諦・滅諦

expression / noun:

• formidable person; shrewd person; someone not to be taken lightly; person of no common order
• certain person (e.g. whose name cannot be disclosed); someone
• that sort of person; that kind of person - archaism

noun:

• hand; arm - occ. pronounced た when a prefix ➜ お手【おて】
• forepaw; foreleg - colloquialism ➜ お手【おて】
• handle
• hand; worker; help
• trouble; care; effort
• means; way; trick; move; technique; workmanship
• hand; handwriting
• kind; type; sort
• one's hands; one's possession ➜ 手に入る
• ability to cope ➜ 手に余る
• hand (of cards)
• direction ➜ 山の手

noun / suffix noun / counter:

• move (in go, shogi, etc.)

expression:

• leave no room for scandal; don't do anything that can be misinterpreted; don't straighten your cap under a plum tree (because when you raise your hands it might look as if you're trying to steal the plums) [literal] - proverb

noun / ~する noun:

• running errands; going on errands
• (transaction of) business; going about one's business
• doing one's business (i.e. at the toilet); going to the washroom
• purveying; purveyor - esp. 用達 ➜ 御用達

expression:

• a bad wife spells the ruin of her husband; a bad wife means a hundred years of bad luck to her husband

noun:

• 180.39 millilitres; 180.39 milliliters ➜ 合【ごう】
• 0.3306 square metres; 0.3306 square meters ➜ 合【ごう】
• one-tenth of the way (from the foot of a mountain to the top) ➜ 合【ごう】