• a body of 18 works written between the first and 11th centuries and incorporating legends and speculative histories of the universe and myths and customary observances
• The hiragana and katakana syllabaries. These are made up of characters that represent individual syllables, which are are used to write Japanese words and particles. Kana are derived from kanji.
• A Japanese syllabary used when writing words borrowed from foreign languages other than Chinese, specific names of plants and animals and other jargon, onomatopoeia, or to emphasize a word or phrase. Also used to write the Ainu language.
• A triangular space between the sides of a pediment.
• The space within an arch, and above a lintel or a subordinate arch, spanning the opening below the arch.
• The middle ear.
• The eardrum.
• A hearing organ in frogs, toads and some insects.
• In certain birds, the labyrinth at the bottom of the windpipe.
• A drum-shaped wheel with spirally curved partitions by which water is raised to the axis when the wheel revolves with the lower part of the circumference submerged; used for raising water, as for irrigation.
• The main syllabary for the Japanese language, used to represent native Japanese words, including particles, and when kanji is used, to represent verb and adjective endings.
Note: This list has been curated by our developer and author and fine-tuned since 2016 with manual additions, exclusions and rankings. Thousands of user contributions from rappers, singers, songwriters and poets have also been used for accuracy.