noun:

• groove in a shamisen player's fingernail caused by the friction of the string of the instrument
• someone's ability to play the shamisen

noun:

• summer (on the lunisolar calendar: 16th day of the 4th month to the 15th day of the 7th month) - Buddhism term

noun:

• Amitabha (Buddha); Amida - Buddhism term
• ghostleg lottery; ladder lottery; lottery in which participants trace a line across a lattice pattern to determine the winner - abbreviation ➜ 阿弥陀籤【あみだくじ】
• wearing a hat pushed back on one's head - abbreviation ➜ 阿弥陀被り【あみだかぶり】

noun:

• thoughts; opinion; (one's) discretion - honorific language
• however much money you wish to give (as alms, a fee at a museum, etc.)
• fondness (for a significant other, etc.; often used teasingly); love; fancy; liking

noun:

• various forms of arts (e.g. acrobatics, magic, puppetry, sarugaku acrobatics performance) ➜ 猿楽【さるがく】
• miscellaneous songs popular from the end of the Heian period to the Kamakura period ➜ 歌謡

noun:

• peep show; device with lens mounted on a stand or in a box to view enlarged pictures ➜ 覗き機関【のぞきからくり】
• water glass; hydroscope; box, etc. with glass bottom for viewing underwater ➜ 箱眼鏡【はこめがね】

expression / adjective:

• (something) has never occurred; to have never done (something); such a thing has not happened - after the past tense form of a verb
• never happens; there is never a time when

expression:

• too much pleasure ruins a man (esp. in reference to spending too much time with geisha and prostitutes); playing the dandy ruins a man - proverb

noun:

• Man of the Year, referring to a man born in a year with the same Chinese zodiac sign as the current year

noun:

• Woman of the Year, referring to a woman born in a year with the same Chinese zodiac sign as the current year

adjectival noun / noun:

• undutifulness to one's parents; lack of filial piety
• (the crime of) cursing one's parents ［ふきょう］ - archaism ➜ 八虐
• disowning one's child ［ふきょう］ - archaism

noun:

• special Diet session; special session of the Diet; Diet session required to be convoked within thirty days of a general election

noun:

• special Diet session; special session of the Diet; Diet session required to be convoked within thirty days of a general election ➜ 特別国会

noun:

• metallic foil cut into strips or other shapes to form decorative motifs
• cutting a thin sheet of metal into shapes and affixing it with lacquer forming natural features (e.g. clouds)

noun:

• black ships (i.e. Western ships, often painted with tar, that came to Japan in the 16th century)
• product, person, etc. arriving from the West and disturbing the Japanese market, etc.

noun:

• making the numbers balance; fixing the numbers; number-juggling; making up the numbers (e.g. to form a majority); taking tally; number-crunching

pre-noun adjectival:

• such (about something or someone close to the speaker (including the speaker), or about ideas expressed by the speaker); like this ➜ あんな・そんな・どんな

noun:

• words used when miserable or anxious - archaism - obsolete term
• words used to decline or refuse something - archaism - obsolete term
• words used when making an appeal - archaism - obsolete term

noun:

• object representative of a divine spirit; object to which a spirit is drawn or summoned; object or animal occupied by a kami ➜ 形代

expression / adjective:

• having no choice; at a loss for what to do; at one's wits' end; at one's wit's end

adverbial noun / temporal noun:

• middle of a month; second third of a month; 11th to 20th day of a month

noun:

• late autumn (fall) windstorm in the countryside; typhoon, esp. one that blows from the 210th to the 220th day of the year ➜ 二百十日・二百二十日・台風
• name of the 28th roll of the Genji monogatari

particle:

• particle indicating a command - particle always used at sentence-end
• particle indicating mild enthusiasm - often as ことね - female language
• particle indicating a gentle interrogative
• particle used to soften a judgment or conclusion - at sentence end as ことよ

expression:

• it's hard to notice one's own faults; one does not notice one's own body odour [literal] - proverb

noun:

• compared to our company's products (a phrase often used in advertising when comparing old and new products); in this company's comparison
• as I see it; by my estimate - colloquialism