預ける
Meaning in Englishleave in someone’s care, deposit
Animated kanji stroke order
Word context
What it means
預ける means to entrust or leave in someone's care for safekeeping, often for a temporary period. The core concept is placing custody or responsibility in another person or institution for safekeeping or administration, whether for objects, money, or people.
Main meanings
- Entrustment or safekeeping of belongings with another person or institution
- Depositing money or valuables for safekeeping, such as at a bank or locker
- Figurative sense of placing trust or confidence in someone
How to use it
Used across formal and informal speech; for physical items, money, or a person under someone's care, e.g., leaving groceries with a neighbor, depositing funds at a bank, or entrusting a child to a caregiver; typical sentence structures include [Nを預ける] or [場所に預ける], with polite forms [Nを預けます] or [Nを預けてください].
Variants and close terms
- 託す (takusu) — to entrust a task or responsibility
- 委ねる (yudaneru) — to entrust, leave to someone’s discretion
- 預かる (azukaru) — to be kept in custody, to take care of
Composition
- 預: core meaning is deposit/entrust, serving as the semantic nucleus of the word
- ける: a verb-ending suffix that converts the stem into a transitive verb meaning to perform the act of entrusting or depositing
Etymology
預 means to deposit or entrust, and ける is the verb-forming suffix; together they form a native kun'yomi verb meaning to entrust or deposit for safekeeping; this is a kanji-based native formation rather than a loanword.
Word class
verb (ichidan) (Japanese verb)