鉛筆
えんぴつ
hepburn enpitsu
pencil
Part of speech · noun
Pattern visualization
Examples
- 鉛筆で書きます。I write with a pencil.
- 鉛筆を削ります。I sharpen the pencil.
Collocations
鉛筆 (enpitsu, pencil)鉛筆削り (enpitsu kezuri, pencil sharpener)色鉛筆 (iro enpitsu, colored pencils)シャープペンシル (shaapu penshiru, mechanical pencil)シャーペン (shaapen, mechanical pencil — clipped)
Mnemonic
鉛筆 enpitsu — kanji "lead (鉛) + brush (筆)" = "lead brush" = pencil. Korean shares the kanji. The graphite-not-lead naming is a historical artifact: 16th-century English miners discovered graphite and mistook it for a lead variant. The kanji preserves the error. Japan's pencil culture peaks in Mitsubishi Uni (1958) and Tombow MONO (1967) — symbols of precision in 文具 (bungu, stationery) industry. Cluster: シャープペンシル (mechanical pencil), シャーペン (clipped), 鉛筆削り (sharpener). One word fuses mineralogy history, stationery industry, and the loanword-clipping system.
Quick check
Why does 鉛筆 include 鉛 (lead) historically?