いろは

Japanese

Etymology 1

⟨iro2ha⟩: */irəjpa/ → /iropa/ → /irofa/ → /iroha/

From Old Japanese.

Compound of いろ (iro, “kinship, same family”) +‎ は (ha, cognate with 母 (haha, “mother”)).[1][2]

Noun

いろは • (iroha) 

  1. mother
    Synonyms: 母, お母さん
    • 938, Minamoto no Shitagō, Wamyō Ruijushō, volume 1, page 116:
      母 尔雅云、母爲妣、卑履反、去聲之重、和名波々、日本紀私記云、以路波
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
Derived terms
  • いろはのイ (iroha no i)

Etymology 2
Alternative spellings
伊呂波
以呂波
色葉

From a pangrammatic poem written in the mid-Heian period. The earliest textual reference is from 1079 CE.[1][2]

Noun

いろは • (iroha) 

  1. a traditional ordering system for kana
  2. (dated) the rudiments, the fundamentals, the basics (of a subject), the ABCs

Etymology 3
For pronunciation and definitions of いろは – see the following entry.
【紅葉あかは】
[proper noun] a female given name
(This term, いろは, is the hiragana spelling of the above term.)

References
  1. Shōgaku Tosho (1988) 国語大辞典（新装版） [Unabridged Dictionary of Japanese (Revised Edition)] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, →ISBN
  2. Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN
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