noun:

• peafowl (incl. the male peacock, female peahen, and young peachick)

noun:

• student who performs housework in exchange for meals and-or lodging
• houseboy

adjectival noun / noun / ~の noun:

• an infinite variety of; multifarious; being extremely varied and wide-ranging - four character idiom

noun:

• civilization and enlightenment; Japan's Westernization movement during the Meiji era (Westernisation) - four character idiom

noun:

• okonomiyaki; savoury pancake containing meat or seafood and vegetables

adverb / ~と adverb / ~する noun:

• stiff (atmosphere, manner, etc.); cold; unfriendly; unsociable; edgy - onomatopoeia
• thin and bony; scrawny - onomatopoeia

noun:

• Kodama; slowest Tōkaidō and Sanyō-line Shinkansen train service (stopping at all stations) ➜ ひかり・のぞみ

noun:

• caliph; chief civil and religious Muslim ruler (prior to 1924)

noun:

• active substance from plants used in manufacture of soap, detergents and medication - From German "Saponin"

noun:

• piroshki (Russian pierogi; meat and eggs, etc. baked in bread) - From Russian "pirozhki"

noun:

• smoke and fumes (e.g. from cooking)
• beacon; skyrocket; signal fire
• fireworks

noun:

• Garuda or Garua (man-bird deity and 'vahana' of Hindu-Buddhist myth)

noun:

• licensed trade between Japan and Ming-dynasty China during the Muromachi period

expression:

• sweet words only please a fool; flattery works on puppets and fools - proverb

noun:

• life-and-death matter; an emergency or crisis where survival is threatened - four character idiom

noun:

• breaks and pauses (in a sentence)
• punctuation - abbreviation ➜ 句読点
• way of reading (esp. kanbun)

noun:

• the five precepts (prohibitions against killing, theft, sexual misconduct, lying and intemperance) - Buddhism term

noun:

• neo-Confucianism (based on the teachings of Zhu Xi and his followers) ➜ 陽明学

expression:

• inscrutable are the ways of heaven; fortune is unpredictable and changeable - proverb

noun:

• family chart and personal history - esp. for お見合い

noun:

• Tokai region of Honshu (incl. Aichi, Shizuoka, Mie and southern Gifu prefectures)

noun:

• yōkan; jellied dessert made from red bean paste, agar, and sugar

noun:

• Edo-period popularized blend of Buddhist, Shinto and Confucian ethical teachings (popularised)

noun:

• drink made of boiled water poured over preserved cherry leaves and blossoms

noun:

• vinegar, soy sauce and mirin (or sugar) mixed in roughly equal proportions ➜ 合わせ酢