桃

Glyph origin
.

Etymology
Possibly borrowed from the linguistic ancestor of 🇨🇬. The oldest-known domesticated peach stones so far have been excavated in Zhejiang, east of the cradle of Chinese civilization.

Definitions

 * 1) peach tree
 * 2) peach fruit
 * 3) peach-shaped object
 * 4) birthday
 * 5)  immature poultry or livestock
 * 6) walnut
 * : Tao
 * 1) walnut
 * : Tao

Synonyms




Kanji

 * 1) peach

Compounds

 * : shell ginger
 * : peach blossom flower
 * : peach (fruit)
 * : “peach arrow” → a male given name

Etymology
From, from. Mentioned in the  of 720.

Brought to Japan in antiquity, with pits found in prehistoric sites from the, 300 BCE - 300 CE. Mentioned as a food in documents from the and  periods.

Ultimate derivation unknown. Theories include the following.
 * Possibly derived originally from a reduplication of, from the way that peaches often grow in clusters. However, the vowel shift seems unlikely given regular Japanese phonetic shifts. In addition, most reduplicated terms in Japanese have the pitch accent pattern, starting high and falling, which differs from the  pitch accent pattern of this term.
 * Possibly cognate with 🇨🇬. However, this also has the pitch accent pattern.
 * Possibly a reduplication of, from the way that peaches are hairy. The term is spelled as in some ancient documents. However,  was commonly used as man'yōgana for its phonetic value, in which cases its original Chinese meaning of  is usually ignored.

None of the above possibilities seems very compelling. Given the archaeological evidence, this term probably originated before the Japanese ancestor population migrated to the Japanese archipelago.

Possibly related to.

Noun

 * 1)  peach
 * 2)  peach tree

Derived terms

 * : pink
 * : “pink parakeet” → : galah,
 * : “pink playing” → sex play
 * : “peach butt” → from the way that the end of a peach is often pointy, and thus difficult to place stably: somebody who is bad at horse-riding; a fidgety, restless person
 * : a peach orchard
 * : “split peach” → a hairstyle of Meiji and Taisho era, featuring a bun resembling a halved peach
 * : the fragrance of peach blossoms

Idioms

 * : “peach and chestnut take three years [to bear fruit], persimmons take eight” → it often takes time to bear the fruit of one's actions

Etymology
From, from. Cognate with 🇨🇬.

Noun

 * 1) peach