One Word a Day, With Its Sources
One word a day,
with its sources.
Each day NipponDaily opens one word from the JLPT N5–N1 lists and shows what its sources say: the reading, meaning and pitch accent, example sentences, and the kanji it is written with. Where a dictionary records how the word was built, such as its parts, its layer of the vocabulary and the sound changes behind it, that is shown too, quoted and linked. Where the sources are silent, the page says so instead of guessing.
1 · A word a day
A new word opens every day at midnight in Japan. Today's is below.
2 · Read what is known
Open it to see its reading, pitch and examples and, where the sources record it, its parts and origin.
3 · Miss a day? Fine
The calendar keeps every word under the day it first opened. Once all have had a day, they come round again.
Today's word
Saturday, October 17, 2026
nine
Kyū is from Middle Chinese 九, in the kan'on reading, so likely a later borrowing.
Read how it's built
Also opened on October 17
The words that opened on this day of the year in other years, oldest first. They share only the date: nothing else links them.
Inside an Entry
A word a day, read slowly — about as long as a cup of tea. Every entry has the basics; the rest appears where the sources record it.
The Basics
On every word: its reading, meaning, JLPT level and part of speech, from JMdict. Where the sources have them, a pitch accent, example sentences from Tatoeba and the kanji it is written with. The rest of the entry is shown only where a source records it.
Taken Apart
Where recorded, the word split into its parts, each with its reading and the meaning Wiktionary gives it — shown only when the source's own split spells the word and joins to its reading. If it doesn't, no split is shown.
Which Layer
Native 和語, Sino-Japanese 漢語, loanword 外来語 or a hybrid: the layer of the vocabulary a word belongs to, where its kanji's KANJIDIC2 readings or JMdict's loan source establish it.
The Process
Compounding, rendaku, clipping, ateji, borrowing, sound change: where an entry's Wiktionary text or JMdict mentions one, it is named and defined.
The Story
Where Wiktionary has an Etymology section for this reading, the word's origin in its own words, quoted verbatim and never paraphrased.
What's Not Settled
Wherever Wiktionary hedges (“probably”, “unknown”, “alternatively”), the line is quoted as it stands and flagged “Not settled”, never turned into a confident guess.
The Evidence
The exact Wiktionary lines behind each claim, taken from one dated dump, with a link to the page and its CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
Where the Claims Come From
Etymology is full of tidy stories that turn out to be wrong, so nothing about a word's origin here is written by a person or a model: it is quoted from a dated dump of Wiktionary, and the build fails if a quote isn't really in it. Readings, meanings and parts of speech come from JMdict, and kanji readings from KANJIDIC2. When the sources disagree — or nobody knows — the entry says so instead of picking a winner. The words are the JLPT N5–N1 vocabulary, and a section with no source behind it says so instead of guessing. The site's colors and shapes follow the seasons — spring, summer, autumn and winter — and the season button in the header lets you pick your own. Nothing about you is sent or saved on a server.
Documentation
How NipponDaily Works
A short book on everything behind the front page: the idea, how the site is built, how every entry is made and checked, and how to work on it.