成功
Meaning in Englishsuccess, achievement
Animated kanji stroke order
Related sentences
Word context
What it means
success means achieving a desired outcome through effort; a noun describing favorable results and, with suru, the act of succeeding.
Main meanings
- The state of attaining a goal or desired result in any field
- The act of achieving success through effort and planning
- A favorable outcome in a project, venture, or competition
How to use it
Used in formal and informal contexts to denote successful outcomes; pairs with 成功する to form a verb meaning to succeed; common collocations include 大成功 and 成功を収める in business, academics, sports; typical contexts include announcements, evaluations, and motivational discourse.
Variants and close terms
- 成果 (seika) — result or outcome
- 大成功 (daiseikō) — great success
- 成功裏に (seikōri ni) — successfully (adverbial form)
- 失敗 (shippai) — failure (antonym)
Composition
- 成 — to become; complete
- 功 — merit; achievement
- The combination expresses achieving merit by completing a goal, i.e., success
Etymology
Reading seikō derived from the on'yomi combination of 成 and 功, borrowed into Japanese via Chinese phonology; the phonetic alignment yields the modern pronunciation.
Origin
First attested in classical Japanese texts influenced by Chinese philosophy; adoption of kanji along with Buddhist and secular discourse helped establish the concept of success.
Word class
noun (名詞) with suru-verb usage