つばき
Japanese
Pronunciation 1
Etymology 1
⟨tubaki1⟩ → */tubakʲi/ → /t͡subaki/
From Old Japanese. Appears in the Man'yōshū, completed some time after 759 CE.[2]
Ultimate derivation unknown. Various theories exist, including:
- Possibly from Old Japanese element つば (tsuba, “glossy, shiny”) + 木 (ki, “tree”).
- Possibly a contraction from 艶葉木 (tsuya pa ki, literally “glossy leaf tree”), with rendaku changing the pa to ba.
- The shift from tsuya to just tsu would have had to occur even earlier than the Man'yōshū. There do not appear to be any other terms exhibiting this same shift.
- This theory also suffers from the same phonetic mismatch for the ki portion.
- Possibly borrowed from Korean 동백 (dongbaek).
- The Korean term is derived from Chinese 冬柏. Considering the early appearance of this term in Japanese, the expected kanji-based reading in Japanese would have been tōhaku instead.
Noun
Proper noun
- a female given name
- 椿, 山茶: Lua error in Module:names at line 633: dot= and nodot= are no longer supported in Template:surname because a trailing period is no longer added by default; if you want it, add it explicitly after the template
- 椿, 山茶: a female given name
- 椿: a place name
Etymology 2
Readings of various names.
Proper noun
- 津波木, 津葉木, 鍔木, 椿木: Lua error in Module:names at line 633: dot= and nodot= are no longer supported in Template:surname because a trailing period is no longer added by default; if you want it, add it explicitly after the template
- 乙姫, 月羽希, 椿希, 椿樹, 椿生: a female given name
- 椿姫, 椿有, 翼希, 翼樹, 翼姫: a female given name
- 翼生: a male given name
Further reading
- Etymology at Nihonjiten (in Japanese)
- Etymology at Gogen-Allguide (in Japanese)
Pronunciation 2
Etymology
Derived as the 連用形 (ren'yōkei, “continuative or stem form”) of now-obsolete verb 唾吐く (tsubaku, “to spit, to expectorate”), itself from 唾 (tsu, “saliva”) + 吐く (haku, “to expel from the mouth: to spit, to vomit, to exhale”).[1][3]