ひげ

Taken apart

No breakdown is shown for this word: the only split Wiktionary offers is hedged (see the marked line below), and it doesn't spell the word — it describes where the sound may come from — so showing it as the word's parts would be a guess.

In a sentence

We don't have the data for this section. The pinned Tatoeba export has no sentence with a translation that uses this word and passes our filter.

What Wiktionary says

Quoted line by line from Wiktionary's Etymology section for this reading, taken from one dated dump so it can't change underneath us. Nothing below is paraphrased.

• “From Old Japanese.”
• Hedged“The ge element is likely related to 毛 (ke, “hair, fur”), but further etymology is uncertain. Possibilities include:”
• Hedged“* Shift from hohoge (頬 (hoho, “cheek”) + 毛 (ke)) or from hirege (鰭 (hire, “fin”) + 毛 (ke)). Both theories are unlikely unless the term originally referred only to cheek hair.”
• “* Shift from hirakuke (開く (hiraku, “to open”) + 毛 (ke)), literally, “hair of the opening”. This would include other hair around the mouth, although “opening” being used to mean the mouth is unlikely.”
• “* Shift from hege (辺 (he) + 毛 (ke)) or herige (縁 (heri, “edge”) + 毛 (ke)), literally, “edge hair”. Compare 唇 (kuchiberi) being from 口 (kuchi, “mouth”) + 縁 (heri), literally, “mouth edge”.”
• “* The hi element being cognate with Korean 입 (ip, “mouth”).”
• “First attested in the Nihon Shoki of 720 CE.”

Source: Wiktionary: ひげ (dump of 2026-09-02), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Reading, meaning and part of speech from JMdict, and kanji readings from KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG).

What the labels mean

和語 Native Japanese

Words that were already Japanese before Chinese vocabulary arrived — usually written with kun'yomi and often short.

Sound change

The pronunciation shifted over the centuries.

Origin unclear

Scholars disagree, or nobody knows.