百姓

Japanese

Kanji in this term
百	姓

Etymology 1

From Middle Chinese 百姓. Compare modern Mandarin 百姓 (bǎixìng).

Pronunciation

• On'yomi: Go'on
• ひゃくしょ​う (Nakadaka)
• IPA: [çja̠kɯ̥ᵝɕʲo̞ː]

Noun

百姓 (hiragana ひゃくしょう, romaji hyakushō, historical hiragana ひゃくしゃう)

1. commoners, the common people; the masses; ordinary citizens
2. a farmer; a peasant; the peasantry in general
3. in reference to the Edo Period, short for 本百姓 (honbyakushō, “the hundred commoner families”, a class of farmers with specific rights and responsibilities)
4. country bumpkin

Synonyms

• (commoner): 公民 (こうみん, kōmin)
• (the people): 大御宝 (おおみたから, ōmitakara)
• (ordinary citizens): 人民 (じんみん, jinmin)
• (peasant): 農民 (のうみん, nōmin)
• (bumpkin): 田舎者 (いなかもの, inakamono)

Idioms

Idioms

百姓と楽しみを同じゅうす (ひゃくせいとたのしみをおなじゅす, hyakusei to tanoshimi o onajūsu): “taking one's pleasure the same as a commoner” → a lord must know the joys and pains of the people 百姓と油は絞るほど出る (ひゃくしょうとあぶらはしぼるほどでる, hyakushō to abura wa shiboru hodo deru): “commoners and oil [sources] give more the harder you squeeze” → the more you demand of the people, the more you get. Compare blood from a stone of roughly opposite meaning. 百姓の泣き言と医者の手柄話 (ひゃくしょうのなきごとといしゃのてがらばなし, hyakushō no nakigoto to isha no tegarabanashi): “the complaints of the peasants and the boasting of the doctors” → a contrast between peasants complaining of poor harvests in a bid to reduce their tax liabilities, against the feats of doctors who will do their utmost to treat even a terminal patient: by extension, an exhortation to put in 101% without grumbling about it 百姓の去年物語 (ひゃくしょうのこぞものがたり, hyakushō no kozo monogatari): “a peasant's tale of last year” → alluding to how peasants would often claim that last year's harvest was better than this year, in a bid to reduce their tax liabilities 百姓の作り倒れ (ひゃくしょうのつくりだおれ, hyakushō no tsukuridaore): “a peasant's manufactured collapse” → describing how peasants working too hard can result in too much produce on the market, causing a price collapse and sizable losses: to be one's own undoing, to defeat oneself by working too hard 百姓の秋大名 (ひゃくしょうのあきだいみょう, hyakushō no aki daimyō): “a peasant's autumn lord” → a metaphor for how the autumn season following the harvest is a time of bounty for commoners 百姓の所務分けで田分け尽くす (ひゃくしょうのしょむわけでたわけつくす, hyakushō no shomuwake de tawake tsukusu): “splitting up a commoner's inheritance amounts to a parceling out of fields / to complete nonsense” → a pun on the reading tawake for both 田分け (“splitting up fields”) and 戯け (“nonsense”), based on how dividing up fields for every generation's inheritance ultimately leads to very small plots and inefficient farming 百姓の人を斬ったよう (ひゃくしょうのひとをきったよう, hyakushō no hito o kitta yō): “like cutting a commoner” → a big commotion 百姓の雁を押さえたよう (ひゃくしょうのがんをおさえたよう, hyakushō no gan o kitta yō): “like holding down a commoner's goose” → a big commotion 百姓の息が天に昇る (ひゃくしょうのいきがてんにのぼる, hyakushō no iki ga ten ni noboru): “a commoner's breath [i.e. spirit] can reach heaven” → where there's a will, there's a way, no matter how weak 百姓の不作話と商人の損話 (ひゃくしょうのふさくばなしとあきんどのそんばなし, hyakushō no fusakubanashi to akindo no sonbanashi): “peasants' talk of poor harvests and merchants' talk of business losses” → farmers and businessmen always grumble about how things aren't going well 百姓の万能 (ひゃくしょうのばんのう, hyakushō no bannō): “a commoner's all-around abilities” → alluding to how a peasant (now farmer) had to be self-reliant and a jack-of-all-trades 百姓百色 (ひゃくしょうひゃくいろ, hyakushō hyaku iro): “a hundred commoners, a hundred colors” → the word "commoners" might be a collective noun, but the people included in that category are various and sundry

Derived terms

Derived terms

百姓一揆 (ひゃくしょういっき, hyakushō ikki): a peasants' revolt or uprising 百姓請け, 百姓請 (ひゃくしょううけ, hyakushō uke): a kind of tax system in the medieval period, whereby local influential families would undertake local tax administration on behalf of the lord 百姓往来 (ひゃくしょうおうらい, hyakushō ōrai): educational materials for commoners' children 百姓仕事 (ひゃくしょうしごと, hyakushō shigoto): commoners' work, farm work 百姓代 (ひゃくしょうだい, hyakushō dai): during the Edo period, the administrative head, advocate, and representative of a village's commoners 百姓分 (ひゃくしょうぶん, hyakushō bun): the commoner class, the peasant or agricultural caste 百姓家, 百姓屋 (ひゃくしょうや, hyakushō ya): a commoner's house, a farmhouse 百姓読み, 百姓読 (ひゃくしょうよみ, hyakushō yomi): reading kanji in one's own way, guessing the reading and/or meaning for each character based on its shape or component elements

Verb

百姓 + する (irregular conjugation, hiragana ひゃくしょうする, romaji hyakushō suru, historical hiragana ひゃくしゃうする)百姓する 百姓 suru

1. to farm, to till the fields

Conjugation

Conjugation of "百姓する" (See Appendix:Japanese verbs.)

Stem forms	Imperfective (未然形)	百姓し	ひゃくしょうし	hyakushō shi
	Continuative (連用形)	百姓し	ひゃくしょうし	hyakushō shi
	Terminal (終止形)	百姓する	ひゃくしょうする	hyakushō suru
	Attributive (連体形)	百姓する	ひゃくしょうする	hyakushō suru
	Hypothetical (仮定形)	百姓すれ	ひゃくしょうすれ	hyakushō sure
	Imperative (命令形)	百姓せよ¹ 百姓しろ²	ひゃくしょうせよ¹ ひゃくしょうしろ²	hyakushō seyo¹ hyakushō shiro²
Key constructions	Passive	百姓される	ひゃくしょうされる	hyakushō sareru
	Causative	百姓させる 百姓さす	ひゃくしょうさせる ひゃくしょうさす	hyakushō saseru hyakushō sasu
	Potential	百姓できる	ひゃくしょうできる	hyakushō dekiru
	Volitional	百姓しよう	ひゃくしょうしよう	hyakushō shiyō
	Negative	百姓しない	ひゃくしょうしない	hyakushō shinai
	Negative continuative	百姓せず	ひゃくしょうせず	hyakushō sezu
	Formal	百姓します	ひゃくしょうします	hyakushō shimasu
	Perfective	百姓した	ひゃくしょうした	hyakushō shita
	Conjunctive	百姓して	ひゃくしょうして	hyakushō shite
	Hypothetical conditional	百姓すれば	ひゃくしょうすれば	hyakushō sureba
¹ Written imperative ² Spoken imperative

Etymology 2

Kan'on reading of both characters, influenced by later borrowing from Middle Chinese.

Pronunciation

• On'yomi: Kan'on
• IPA: [ha̠kɯ̥ᵝse̞ː]

Noun

百姓 (hiragana はくせい, romaji hakusei)

1. (rare) See under Etymology 1

Etymology 3

Kan'on reading of the second character, influenced by later borrowing from Middle Chinese.

Pronunciation

• On'yomi: Kan'on
• IPA: [çja̠kɯ̥ᵝse̞ː]

Noun

百姓 (hiragana ひゃくせい, romaji hyakusei)

1. (rare) See under Etymology 1

Etymology 4

Non-palatalized variant of hyakushō reading, commonly found in writings from the Heian period through the Muromachi period.

Pronunciation

• On'yomi: Kan'on
• IPA: [çja̠kɯ̥ᵝso̞ː]

Noun

百姓 (hiragana ひゃくそう, romaji hyakusō, historical hiragana ひゃくさう)

1. (obsolete) See under Etymology 1

---

Mandarin

simpl. and trad.
百姓

Noun

百姓 (traditional and simplified, Pinyin bǎixìng)

1. the common people; the masses; ordinary citizens

Synonyms

• 老百姓

Proper noun

百姓 (traditional and simplified)

1. The actual list of the common Chinese surnames recorded in the Baijiaxing and other works

Synonyms

• 老百姓
• 百家姓

References

• "百姓" (in Mandarin), Guoyu Cidian On-line Mandarin Dictionary (國語辭典). URL accessed on 2008-02-17.