Word
湖
Meaning in Englishlake
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Sentence
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Word context
What it means
湖 means a lake, a large inland body of standing water surrounded by land. It denotes a natural or artificial water feature commonly used in geography, maps, and everyday speech when referring to lakes.
Main meanings
- Primary meaning: a large inland body of standing water surrounded by land.
- Geographical usage: commonly appears on maps, textbooks, and signs to denote lakes.
- Literary nuance: in literature it can evoke tranquility, reflection, or natural scenery.
- Related terms: appears in compounds and place names for lakeside or lake water concepts.
How to use it
Used as a plain noun in formal, educational, and everyday speech to refer to a lake. In compounds, it forms terms like 湖畔 and 湖水, and it often appears in geographic names and descriptions of landscapes.
Variants and close terms
- 淡水湖 (tansui-ko) — freshwater lake
- 湖水 (kosui) — lake water
- 湖畔 (kohan) — lakeside
- 内湖 (naiko) — inland lake
Composition
- 氵 water radical indicating relation to liquids
- 古 phonetic component contributing to the reading and linking to related water terms
- the combination yields湖, a noun naming a lake
Origin
湖 entered Japanese with the adoption of Chinese characters during the Asuka and Heian periods, appearing in classical literature and geographic writing as the standard noun for inland water bodies.
Word class
noun (名詞)
Kanji