下さい

Taken apart

No breakdown is shown for this word: Wiktionary's text for it doesn't give a split that spells the word and joins to its reading, and any other split would be a guess.

Written with 下

In a sentence

• 来(き)て下(くだ)さい。

  Please come.

  Tatoeba #78718, translation #324997

• 枕(まくら)を下(くだ)さい。

  Please get me a pillow.

  Tatoeba #81216, translation #593537

Sentences are from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR), picked by fixed rules from a dated export and shown unchanged. Nobody has reviewed them one by one.

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.

• “Imperative (命(めい)令(れい)形(けい) (meireikei)) form of 下(くだ)さる (kudasaru, “to give”), the honorific form of 呉(く)れる (kureru). This form is said to have either directly shifted from an earlier 下(くだ)され (kudasare), which is more typical of 四(よ)段(だん)活(かつ)用(よう) (yodan katsuyō, “quadrigrade inflection”) and its descendant 五(ご)段(だん)活(かつ)用(よう) (godan katsuyō, “quintigrade inflection”), or to be a clipping of 下(くだ)さいまし (kudasaimashi) or 下(くだ)さいませ (kudasaimase), from 下(くだ)さり (kudasari, 連(れん)用(よう)形(けい) (ren'yōkei, “stem or continuative form”) of the verb 下(くだ)さる (kudasaru), then shifting from kudasari to kudasai in a process called イ音(おん)便(びん) (i-onbin, “-i sound shift”)) + まし (-mashi) or ませ (-mase), imperative forms of ます (-masu).”

Source: Wiktionary: 下さい (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.

Clipping

A longer word or phrase shortened in everyday use.

Sound change

The pronunciation shifted over the centuries.