First opened Thursday, September 17, 2009
八日
ようか
Pitch accent: We don't have the data for this section. No accent list gives this spelling and reading, or the two we check against disagree.
eight days; eighth day of the month
“Eight days” is a classical やうか that was probably a やか first — or the other way round.
Taken apart
Select a part to see every word so far that is taken apart with it.
Wiktionary's text doesn't split this word, so each part is one of its kanji (with the okurigana written after it), with the reading and the dictionary meaning KANJIDIC2 gives that character — a word doesn't always use every sense of its kanji.
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.
Not settled
Wiktionary itself hedges on part of this word's origin — those lines are marked below.
- Hedged“From Classical Japanese 八日(やうか) (yauka), itself usually considered a shift from 八日(やか) (yaka), ultimately a compound of 八(や) (ya, “eight”) + 日(か) (-ka, counter for days). There is speculation that -uka was the original counter for days (see the etymology at 日(か) (ka)), in which case yauka may have been the older form and yaka a shift from that.”
Source: Wiktionary: 八日 (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).
Other readings of 八日 on the same Wiktionary page
These describe other words written the same way, not ようか. They are quoted for context: the parts, layer and processes of this word are not taken from them.
やか
- “Compound of 八(や) (ya, “eight”) + 日(か) (-ka, counter for days). Possibly instead a shift from 八日(やうか) (yauka).”
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.
- Compound
- Two or more words or stems joined into one.
- Sound change
- The pronunciation shifted over the centuries.