noun:

• lantern festival, held on the night of the 15th day of the first month in the lunar calendar ➜ 小正月・元宵

noun:

• imperial event at which high monks recited the Golden Light Sutra to pray for national security and good harvests (held annually at the palace from the 8th to the 14th of the first lunar month, between the Nara and Muromachi periods) ➜ 金光明最勝王経

noun:

• part of the feet from the ankles to the tips of the toes

expression / ichidan verb:

• to make a leap into the dark; to take the plunge; to jump in at the deep end; to jump off the stage of the Kiyomizu temple [literal] - idiom

pre-noun adjectival:

• that (something or someone distant from the speaker, close to the listener; actions of the listener, or ideas expressed or understood by the listener); the ➜ 何の【どの】・此の・其れ・彼の

interjection:

• um...; er...; uh...

noun:

• hired foreigner; foreign advisor hired by the Japanese government for their specialized knowledge to assist in the modernization of Japan at the end of the Bakufu and during the Meiji Era

expression:

• the beauties of nature as the key poetic theme; the central theme in composing poetry (haiku) must be the beauties of nature and the harmony that exist between nature and man. (The slogan of the Hototogisu School of modern Japanese haiku) - four character idiom ➜ 花鳥風月

noun:

• banishment (to a location far from the capital); the harshest of the three banishment punishments under the ritsuryo system

expression:

• the husband is always the last to know; everyone knows of the wife's infidelity but the cuckolded husband - idiom

noun:

• stairs at the front of a noh stage, which go over the white gravel separating the audience from the stage ➜ 白洲

expression:

• the end of the world; the world is beyond saving; there's no hope for the future; this degenerate age

noun:

• immersion; dipping; in microscopy, immersing both the objective lens and the specimen in a liquid to increase the numerical aperture; in photolithography, filling the air gap between the final lens and the wafer surface with a liquid to increase the resolution

noun:

• collecting herbs and pulling out young pine trees by the roots (annual event held on the first Day of the Rat in the New Year) ➜ 子の日の遊び

noun:

• locking the barn door after the horse has bolted; doing something too late; mending the pen after the sheep are lost [literal] - four character idiom

noun:

• working the corners; hitting the corners of the plate; pitcher's technique of throwing a ball aiming at the edge of the strike zone - Baseball term - From English "corner work"
• cornering skill (skating, driving, etc.)

noun:

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

noun:

• the "three noes principle" of no drive (indolence), no interest (indifference), and no sense of responsibility (irresponsibility), the term describing the temperament of the Japanese youth of the 1970s - four character idiom

noun:

• speech used by the speaker to convey the social stature between the speaker and listener; language conveying that the speaker is of greater social status than the listener - honorific language

noun:

• probe into the truth (of the matter); dig into the real facts of the case; get at the root of a matter - four character idiom

noun:

• the way of the world in our time; the frame of mind of the people nowadays - four character idiom

expression / ichidan verb:

• to make the most of the present; to live for the moment; to seize the day

adverb:

• between the waves; in the waves; on the waves; behind the waves; beneath the waves ➜ 波間【なみま】

noun:

• the (fast) pace at which life passes, and thus the nearness of death; promptitude of the changes of the times - four character idiom

noun:

• land-tax rate during the Edo period (the government took 60 percent of the year's rice crop and the farmers kept 40 percent) - four character idiom

noun:

• Harvest festival held on the night of the tenth day of the tenth month (to send the rice paddy gods back to the mountains after harvest)