うさぎ
うさぎ
hepburn usagi
rabbit
Part of speech · noun
Pattern visualization
no decomposition available
Examples
- うさぎはかわいいです。Rabbits are cute.
- 月でうさぎが餅をついています。A rabbit is pounding rice cakes on the moon.
Collocations
うさぎ / 兎 (usagi, rabbit)月のうさぎ (tsuki no usagi, moon rabbit — folklore)兎角 (tokaku, "anyway" — idiom)兎跳び (usagi tobi, bunny hop exercise)ピーターラビット (peetaa rabitto, Peter Rabbit)
Mnemonic
うさぎ / 兎 usagi — kanji is hard so kana dominates. The traditional 月のうさぎ legend says the moon's surface shadows form a rabbit pounding rice cakes — a tale shared across China, Korea, and Vietnam, woven into Japan's 月見 (tsukimi, moon-viewing). Scholarly/literary adverb 兎角 (tokaku, とかく) means "anyway, this and that" — frequent in writing but unrelated etymologically (the kanji literally read "rabbit horns", a nonexistent thing → "all sorts of things"). One word touches East Asian folklore, the autumn-moon ritual, and literary register.
Quick check
Cultural distribution of the 月のうさぎ legend?