天然
Meaning in Englishnature, spontaneity
Animated kanji stroke order
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Word context
What it means
天然 means natural or unmodified; it describes things that exist in nature rather than being manufactured or altered by people; in everyday use it can also denote an innate quality, and in casual speech 天然だ can refer to a person who is ditzy.
Main meanings
- natural state or condition — shizen no joutai
- natural materials or products — tennen sozai
- unplanned or spontaneous behavior — shizen na koudou
- airhead, ditzy person in casual slang — tennen-boke
How to use it
Used as a noun; 天然の attaches to nouns to mean natural or authentic material or condition; in everyday speech 天然だ or 天然の人で describe someone as ditzy or spacey in casual talk; in formal writing it can describe inherent or natural characteristics without implying artificiality.
Variants and close terms
- 自然の — natural (shizen no)
- 人工的 — artificial (jinkouteki)
- 天然ボケ — airhead (tennenboke)
- 天然素材 — natural material (tennen sozai)
Composition
- 天 = heaven, sky; contributes sense of natural domain
- 然 = natural, thus; indicates a natural state or occurrence
- Combination yields 天然, meaning a state or thing that exists in nature without human modification
Etymology
on'yomi ten and nen combine to form tennen, a Sino-Japanese reading that yields 天然; the compound arose as a lexical unit in Japanese via kanji adoption and took the meaning of natural or unmodified over time.
Origin
Adopted from Chinese 天然; used in Sino-Japanese literature, the term broadened in modern Japanese to cover natural materials, natural states, and natural behavior.
Word class
noun (名詞); also used in 天然の to modify nouns and in casual predication 天然だ to describe a person