noun:

• butcher-bird prey impaled on twigs, thorns, etc. for later consumption - abbreviation ➜ 百舌の早贄
• first offering of the season - orig. meaning

noun:

• something heard for the first time; hearing something for the first time

noun:

• pattern of Japanese accent with the first mora high and the following ones low

suffix:

• first doing of ... (ever, in one's life, in the new year, etc.) - after the -masu stem of a verb

noun:

• custom of having toddlers step on a sticky rice cake on their first birthday

noun:

• upper reaches (of a river); upper stream Antonym: 下【しも】
• top; upper part; upper half (of the body)
• long ago
• beginning; first
• person of high rank (e.g. the emperor) - honorific language ➜ 御上
• government; imperial court
• imperial capital (i.e. Kyoto); capital region (i.e. Kansai); region (or direction of) the imperial palace ➜ 上方【かみがた】
• head (of a table)
• wife; mistress (of a restaurant) - honorific language

noun:

• refined version of ta-asobi dance performed in Tōhoku about half way through the first lunar month ➜ 田遊び

noun / ~の noun:

• blue; azure
• green - mostly in compound words and in ref. to fruits, plants and traffic lights

noun:

• green light (traffic) - abbreviation ➜ 青信号
• black (horse coat color) ➜ 青毛

prefix:

• immature; unripe; young

expression:

• better be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion; better be first in a village than second at Rome; better to be the mouth of a chicken than the rear end of a cow [literal] - proverb

noun:

• glossy hair; glossy fur; glossy coat (on an animal)

adverb:

• first (of all); to start with; about; almost; anyway; well; now
• hardly (with neg. verb)

adverb:

• first of all; at once; right away
• for now; for the time being

noun:

• rule allowing the clear winner of a bout to touch down first to avoid injury - Sumo term

noun:

• skipping grades; the act of entering a new school as a non-first-year student

noun:

• holiday granted to servants on the 16th of the first and seventh months - archaism

noun:

• first star of the Big Dipper
• top applicant in the civil service examination (Imperial China) - archaism

noun:

• matter of the highest priority; top priority; first priority

suffix:

• style; manner
• after (period of time) again (e.g. meeting again after a year); for the first time in (period of time) ➜ 久しぶり【ひさしぶり】

noun:

• five letters; five signs
• first five syllables of a waka or haiku ➜ 和歌・俳句

noun / ~の noun:

• once in a lifetime; the first and last occurrence (event, experience) of one's lifetime - four character idiom

noun:

• first half of the Lotus Sutra, in which the Buddha appears as a spatiotemporally restricted being ➜ 本門

noun:

• first song or chirp, etc. (in the year) of a particular bird or insect species

noun or verb acting prenominally:

• fleshy; plump; chubby; corpulent

~する noun:

• to apply thickly; to slap on; to coat with something thick

noun:

• one term; one period
• first term; first period

noun:

• decorating the alcove of a tea room with a hanging scroll and flowers (in more formal tea ceremonies, during only the first and second half respectively)
• style of decorating a traditional Japanese room (esp. a study) in which incense, a pair of vases and a pair of candlesticks are placed on a table in front of a trio of hanging scrolls - orig. meaning