expression / noun:

• Now let's return to the main subject; To return from the digression,.. (in a conversation, speech, or story-telling) - four character idiom

suffix:

• far from; anything but; not at all
• let alone; to say nothing of; not to speak of; much less

noun:

• Narita divorce; divorce case of a newlywed couple breaking up upon their return to Narita Airport from their honeymoon abroad - four character idiom

noun:

• wooden doll with Japanese costumes made from cloth with the edges tucked into grooves in the wood; kimekomi doll

expression:

• like begets like; the apple doesn't fall far from the tree; eggplants don't grow on gourd vines [literal] - proverb

expression / godan ~く verb:

• to pull (the puppet) strings; to direct things from behind the scenes
• to stretch out (and keep going); to linger on

noun / ~する noun:

• setting oneself free from the life of a white-collar worker; quitting a job as a salaryman and launching an independent business ➜ サラ

noun:

• adult child; adult children; adult person psychologically traumatized from being raised in an abusive or dysfunctional family (e.g. by alcoholic parents)

noun / ~する noun / ~の noun:

• outbreak; spring forth; occurrence; incidence
• generation (e.g. of power or heat); genesis; origin
• ontogeny; development of complex multicellular structures from cell(s) in a simple state ➜ 個体発生

ichidan verb / transitive:

• to discern (e.g. right from wrong); to discriminate; to distinguish
• to know (manners, one's place, etc.); to understand; to bear in mind

noun:

• dried lacquer
• dry lacquer (technique); kanshitsu; technique for making objects (vessels, sculptures, statues, etc.) from many layers of hemp cloth soaked with lacquer

noun / ~する noun:

• Galapagosization; widespread design of Japanese products (e.g. cell phones) specifically for the domestic market, which are therefore unsuccessful overseas and also vulnerable to competition from imports - because the Galapagos contains many endemic species

noun:

• Japanese word constructed of elements from one or more English terms; pseudo-English word or phrase coined in Japan; wasei eigo

noun:

• dash at the beginning of a short-distance race - From English "start dash"
• charging ahead at full strength from the beginning

noun:

• blood spilt from the body
• blood circulating within the body (often as a metaphor for strong emotion or hot-bloodedness)

expression / godan ~う verb:

• to err and not change one's ways, this is what it is to err (from Analects of Confucius)

noun:

• Chinese coinage produced during the reign of the Yongle Emperor (used in Japan from the Muromachi period to the early Edo period)

noun:

• trial decision; decision by a court; judgment from a trial

noun:

• sky; the air; the heavens
• weather
• far-off place; distant place
• state of mind; feeling - often as 〜空もない
• (from) memory; (by) heart - usu. as 空で
• falsehood; lie

prefix noun:

• somehow; vaguely - before an adjective
• fake - before a noun or a verb

noun:

• area between the regular outfield wall and a lower home-run fence set up at a shorter distance from home plate - Baseball term - From English "lucky zone"

noun:

• notice or order handed down from above; announcement; notification ➜ 達し
• Edo-period proclamation issued by the shogunate (or a daimyo, etc.) to the concerned parties ➜ 御触書

noun:

• ash glaze (type of fundamental glaze used in ancient times made from the ashes of raw materials such as unhulled rice, straw, oak and pine)

expression:

• though sitting on a pile of riches, one comes back empty handed; to have a good opportunity only to let it slip from your grasp - proverb

noun:

• new straw; straw from the current year
• rice seedlings boiled and dried and then tied into a woman's hair to chase evil spirits away

expression / noun:

• the harmonizing, mentally and physically, of two parties engaged in an activity; singing from the same hymn-sheet; dancing to the same beat - idiom