Standard Lemma guide

furigana

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

No pronunciation record was provided for this word.

1

noun

Meaning 1

Kana printed next to or above a kanji or other character to indicate the pronunciation.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: Japanese

Topics: media, publishing, typography

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese 振り仮名 (furigana, “annotating kana”, literally “assigned provisional character”).

Across languages

Translations

10 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Arabic: فُورِيغَانَا (furigānā) — furigana
  • Arabic: فُورِيغَانَا (furiḡānā) — furigana
  • Chinese Mandarin: 振假名 (zhènjiǎmíng) — furigana
  • Japanese: 振り仮名 (furigana) — furigana
  • Japanese: ルビ (rubi) — furigana
  • Korean: 후리가나 (hurigana) — furigana
  • Marathi: फुरिगाना (furigānā) — furigana
  • Russian: фурига́на (furigána) — furigana
  • Russian: ру́би (rúbi) — furigana
  • Thai: ฟุริงะนะ (fúríngáná) — furigana