天下

Etymology
Earliest attestations are in the ' and ' (as「天之下」then「天下」).

thinks it "likely that "originally tianxia referred to the area under the direct rule of the Son of Heaven [a.k.a. the Zhou king], and its limits might have shrunk together with the contraction of royal power". See there for more on the term's gradual semantic evolution through the, , until after.

Noun

 * 1)  the world; everything under the sky; all under heaven
 * 2)  China; the Chinese nation
 * 3)  state power; domination
 * 1)  China; the Chinese nation
 * 2)  state power; domination
 * 1)  state power; domination
 * 1)  state power; domination
 * 1)  state power; domination

Synonyms




Descendants
Others:

Etymology 1
From. The kan'on, so likely a later borrowing.

Noun

 * 1) the whole world, the earth
 * 2) the whole country, all of Japan
 * 3) the government of Japan
 * 4) power, control over the government
 * 5)  the shogun
 * 6)  in traditional Japanese card games, one of the strong cards known as
 * : the best in the world often used attributively with the particle

Etymology 2
From. The go'on, so likely the earlier borrowing.

Appears with this reading in the , dating to roughly 974 CE. Superseded in modern Japanese by tenka above.

Noun

 * 1)  the world, the earth