旦

dawn, daybreak, morning; first day

Kanji 2063

This kanji may be graphically simple, but it's associated with a bewildering mess of meanings! Primarily, 旦 relates to dawn and the first day of a year or month, but 旦 also pops up in a term meaning "momentarily" (and its spinoffs). And then a very common word with 旦 involves powerful men (and their sons and businesses) and even geishas and mistresses. The essay connects these dots!

Revision History:

Nov. 27, 2024: p. 4: Revised the discussion of the historical meanings of 震 and fixed the link.

Nov. 3, 2023:

• pp. 12-14: Made several minor improvements to wording.
• p. 15: Removed an extraneous parenthesis and added a definition for the particle ぜ.

Oct. 31, 2023: p. 13 sidebar: Made a slight clarification.

Oct. 27, 2023: 

• p. 13, top: Improved the wording and added information about formal and informal terms for "husband."
• p. 13: 1st sample sentence: Added "male" in parentheses for clarity.
• p. 14, last sample sentence: Removed the redness from the をしている, as the keyword is simply the noun.
• p. 15, 2nd photo caption: Improved the wording.

June 2, 2021: 

• p. 2: Added the Henshall etymology.
• p. 12: Changed the breakdown of 旦那 from master + な sound to ダン sound + ナ sound, as those sounds are on-yomi. Made a comparable change to the breakdown of 大旦那 on p. 13.
• p. 16: Added a link to the Kanshudo games.

June 28, 2018:

• p. 5: Changed the breakdown of 元旦 from beginning + 1st day to beginning + dawn. Made a related change on p. 1.
• p. 6: Changed the breakdown of 歳旦 from year + 1st day to year + dawn.
• p. 12: Changed the breakdown of 旦那 from master + な sound to だん sound + な sound. A sentence later on that page referred to the old breakdown, so I deleted the sentence.

Oct. 16, 2015: Originally published.