彼女

Japanese

Kanji in this term
彼	女
か(の) Grade: S	じょ Grade: 1
yutōyomi

Etymology

First appears in writing in the late Edo period as a compound of 彼の (kano, ano, “that”) +‎ 女 (onna, “woman”) with the reading kano onna or ano onna, simply meaning “that woman”. The kanojo reading arose by replacing the kun'yomi reading of onna for the second character with its on'yomi of jo. The first written appearance of the kanojo reading is in 1876, in the 改正画引小学読本 (Kaisei Gakubiki Shōgaku Dokuhon, “Revised Stroke-ordered Elementary-school Reader”). The first clear use of this term as a pronoun is around 1888, arising out of influence from Western works. The kanojo reading became more common and replaced kano onna and ano onna during the Taishō period (1912-1926).

Pronoun

彼(かの)女(じょ) • (kanojo) ^{←かのぢよ (kanodyo)?}

1. she; her

   彼(かれ)氏(し)彼(かの)女(じょ)の事(じ)情(じょう)

   Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō

   His and Her Circumstances

Noun

1. a girlfriend (a female partner in a romantic relationship)

   あぁ、彼(かの)女(じょ)がほしいなぁ…

   Ā, kanojo ga hoshii nā…

   Man, I wish I had a girlfriend…
2. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) a boat or ship (influenced by Western customs of treating a ship as female)

Usage notes

• Template:U:ja:informal

See also

• 彼(かれ) (kare)
• 彼(かれ)氏(し) (kareshi)