Chinese
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hundred |
surname; family name; name |
simp. and trad.
(百姓)
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百
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姓
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Literally: “hundred surnames - see 百家姓”. |
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Noun
百姓
- the common people; the masses; ordinary citizens
- Synonyms: 老百姓 (lǎobǎixìng)
Japanese
Etymology 1
From Middle Chinese compound 百姓 (paek sjengH, literally “hundred clans”). Compare modern Hakka 百姓 (pak-siang).[1]
The goon reading, so likely an earlier borrowing.
Pronunciation
Noun
百姓 (hiragana ひゃくしょう, romaji hyakushō, historical hiragana ひやくしやう)
- commoners, the common people; the masses; ordinary citizens
- a farmer; a peasant; the peasantry in general
- 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)
- country bumpkin
Synonyms
Idioms
Idioms
- 百姓と楽しみを同じゅうす (hyakushō 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 (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 (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 (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 (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 (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 (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 (hyakushō no hito o kitta yō): “like cutting a commoner” → a big commotion
- 百姓の雁を押さえたよう (hyakushō no gan o osaeta yō): “like holding down a commoner's goose” → a big commotion
- 百姓の息が天に昇る (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 (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 (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): “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
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Derived terms
Derived terms
- 百姓一揆 (hyakushō ikki): a peasants' revolt or uprising
- 百姓請け, 百姓請 (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 (hyakushō ōrai): educational materials for commoners' children
- 百姓仕事 (hyakushō shigoto): commoners' work, farm work
- 百姓代 (hyakushō dai): during the Edo period, the administrative head, advocate, and representative of a village's commoners
- 百姓分 (hyakushō bun): the commoner class, the peasant or agricultural caste
- 百姓家, 百姓屋 (hyakushō ya): a commoner's house, a farmhouse
- 百姓読み, 百姓読 (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
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Verb
百姓する (hiragana ひゃくしょうする, romaji hyakushō suru, historical hiragana ひやくしやうする)
- to farm, to till the fields
Conjugation
Conjugation of "百姓する" (See Appendix:Japanese verbs.)
| Stem forms
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| Imperfective (未然形) |
百姓し |
ひゃくしょうし
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hyakushō shi
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| Continuative (連用形) |
百姓し |
ひゃくしょうし
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hyakushō shi
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| Terminal (終止形) |
百姓する |
ひゃくしょうする
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hyakushō suru
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| Attributive (連体形) |
百姓する |
ひゃくしょうする
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hyakushō suru
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| Hypothetical (仮定形) |
百姓すれ |
ひゃくしょうすれ
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hyakushō sure
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| 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
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hyakushō seyo¹
hyakushō shiro²
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| Key constructions
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| Passive
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百姓される |
ひゃくしょうされる
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hyakushō sareru
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| Causative
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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
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hyakushō saseru
hyakushō sasu
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| Potential
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百姓できる |
ひゃくしょうできる
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hyakushō dekiru
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| Volitional
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百姓しよう |
ひゃくしょうしよう
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hyakushō shiyō
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| Negative
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百姓しない |
ひゃくしょうしない
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hyakushō shinai
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| Negative continuative
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百姓せず |
ひゃくしょうせず
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hyakushō sezu
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| Formal
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百姓します |
ひゃくしょうします
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hyakushō shimasu
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| Perfective
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百姓した |
ひゃくしょうした
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hyakushō shita
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| Conjunctive
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百姓して |
ひゃくしょうして
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hyakushō shite
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| Hypothetical conditional
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百姓すれば |
ひゃくしょうすれば
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hyakushō sureba
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¹ Written imperative
² Spoken imperative
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Etymology 2
Kan'on reading of both characters, influenced by later borrowing from Middle Chinese.[1]
Pronunciation
Noun
百姓 (hiragana はくせい, romaji hakusei)
- (rare) See under Etymology 1
Etymology 3
Kan'on reading of the second character, influenced by later borrowing from Middle Chinese.[1]
Pronunciation
Noun
百姓 (hiragana ひゃくせい, romaji hyakusei, historical hiragana ひやくせい)
- (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.[1]
Pronunciation
Noun
百姓 (hiragana ひゃくそう, romaji hyakusō, historical hiragana ひやくさう)
- (obsolete) See under Etymology 1
References
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1 2 3 4 1988, 国語大辞典（新装版） (Kokugo Dai Jiten, Revised Edition) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan
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↑ 1998, NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 (NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: NHK, ISBN 978-4-14-011112-3