明るい
Meaning in Englishbright, cheerful
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Word context
What it means
What does 明るい (akarui) mean? It denotes the general property of 'brightness' and is used in Japanese as a descriptive i-adjective to express lightness or an upbeat quality.
Main meanings
- 1) A space or surface that is well illuminated, with a noticeable amount of light.
- 2) A color or tone that appears vivid, pale, or not dark.
- 3) A person's temperament that is cheerful, friendly, or sociable.
- 4) An atmosphere, mood, or expression that feels optimistic or light-hearted rather than gloomy.
- 5) A figurative sense meaning clear, simple, or easy to understand (applied to explanations, writing, or presentations).
How to use it
Common across spoken and written registers, used both predicatively with copula and attributively before nouns; it forms an adverb with 明るく (akaruku) and follows standard i-adjective conjugation patterns for negative, past, and connective forms; found in everyday conversation, product descriptions, news, and informal character descriptions.
Variants and close terms
- 暗い (kurai) — dark, gloomy (antonym)
- 陽気 (youki) — cheerful, merry (near-synonym for personality)
- 明朗 (meirou) — bright, cheerful (more formal)
- はっきりした (hakkiri shita) — clear, distinct (related, for clarity)
Composition
- 明: composed of the elements for sun (日) and moon (月), conveying light/brightness as the core meaning.
- Okurigana 〜い: the adjective ending that marks this as an i-adjective and carries the grammatical inflection rather than separate semantic content.
Origin
The adjective has roots in Old Japanese and appears in classical poetry and prose; the use of Chinese characters to write native adjectives became common in the Heian to Early Modern periods, and the modern written form stabilized as the language standardized in the Meiji era and afterward.
Word class
adjective (i-adjective, い形容詞)