下水
Meaning in Englishdrainage, sewage, ditch, gutter, sewerage
Animated kanji stroke order
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Word context
What it means
下水 means sewage or wastewater; it refers to used water that carries waste and is carried away through a sewer system for treatment.
Main meanings
- Sewage or wastewater produced by households and industry, typically conveyed through a sewer network.
- The sewer system or drainage network as an infrastructure concept in urban sanitation.
- In technical discourse, relates to wastewater management and treatment processes.
How to use it
Used primarily in formal and technical contexts such as civil engineering, urban planning, sanitation policy, and wastewater management. In everyday speech, the term is understood and often contrasted with terms like 汚水 and 排水 depending on nuance; when specifically referring to the infrastructure, 下水道 is preferred.
Variants and close terms
- 汚水 (osui) – wastewater
- 排水 (haisui) – drainage, runoff
- 排水溝 (haisuikō) – drainage channel
- 下水道 (gesuido) – sewer system
Composition
- 下 – below, down
- 水 – water
- Combined, 下水 denotes water that moves away from the surface, i.e., wastewater carried to a sewer or drainage system.
Origin
Origin in historic urban Japan, with early sewer infrastructure appearing in Edo-period cities and expanding during Meiji modernization; the term gradually formalized to denote wastewater and sewerage in public and technical contexts.
Word class
noun (名詞)