風邪
Meaning in Englishcold, flu
Animated kanji stroke order
Related sentences
Word context
What it means
風邪 (kaze) means the common cold: an acute, usually mild respiratory illness characterized by nasal congestion, sore throat, cough, sneezing and sometimes low-grade fever; in everyday Japanese it refers to that illness itself and the general state of having those symptoms.
Main meanings
- 1. Used in a verb construction to express "to catch a cold" as a common daily-health action, showing result or onset of symptoms.
- 2. Appears with modifiers to indicate degree, such as a slight onset or a lingering, worsened condition.
- 3. Functions in compound words naming related items (medicines, symptom descriptions) rather than naming a different disease.
- 4. Occasionally used figuratively to describe a minor, temporary setback or malaise in non-medical contexts.
How to use it
Common in casual and polite conversation to report or ask about health, in clinical settings as a non-specific diagnosis label, and in written guidance about symptoms and prevention; informal contexts favor simple statements of feeling unwell while formal or medical contexts use more specific symptom descriptions and polite grammar.
Variants and close terms
- 感冒 (kanbō) — medical/technical term for common cold.
- 風邪気味 (kaze gimi) — feeling slightly like a cold is coming on.
- インフルエンザ (infuruenza) — influenza, a distinct viral illness often compared to but different from a cold.
- 健康 (kenkō) — health (antonym in context of being unwell).
Composition
- 風 (kaze) — "wind"; evokes movement, draft or atmospheric influence.
- 邪 (ja) — "evil" or "harmful"; historically used to denote harmful influences or pathogenic factors.
- Combined as 風邪 (kaze) the characters historically convey an illness attributed to harmful wind or external pathogenic influence, which evolved to mean the common cold.
Origin
The concept entered Japanese medical vocabulary via classical Chinese medicine and writing; references to wind‑related ailments appear in early medical texts and literature, and the term was established in everyday speech by the Edo period as recognizable seasonal and common sickness.
Word class
noun (名詞)