江

Glyph origin
.

Etymology 1

 * "Yangtze River"

Borrowed from a substrate language as ; compare 🇨🇬 > 🇨🇬 (🇨🇬), 🇨🇬.

Derivative:.

Definitions

 * 1) Yangtze River
 * 2)  river
 * 3)   the third day of a month
 * : Jiang (mainland China), Chiang (Taiwan), Kong (Hong Kong), Kiang (Old fashion)
 * : Jiang (mainland China), Chiang (Taiwan), Kong (Hong Kong), Kiang (Old fashion)

Usage notes
The word that referred to a body of flowing water such as stream, creek or river was represented in early Chinese with, a pictograph showing water flowing between two banks, similar to the form of the character.

In early times, specialized characters were created to represent words that described particular bodies of water. These words often contain the water radical, which was originally written in the same way that the original form of 水 was written.

In early texts, the term usually referred directly to the. Over time, 河 became used as a generalized term for rivers that were bigger than a stream. The term is sometimes associated with an 'older' body of flowing water that has a smaller volume. Similarly, 江 was originally the name of the Yangtze River which is a relatively larger body of flowing water. 江 became the standard bearer for a slightly differentiated category of river. It was then applied broadly as a generic term.

Among Chinese users, there are commonly held beliefs about the differences between these near synonyms that may not be reflected in an ordinary dictionary. 江 are often thought of as the larger rivers that are usually in southern China, while are usually rivers with comparatively lesser volume or that are artificial and are usually found in northern China (and may be considered culturally 'older'). These two terms are often the subject of attempts at comparisons. Terms for smaller bodies of flowing water include: which are usually mid-sized or relatively small rivers,  and  which are creeks, streams, brooks, and gullies, and  which are streams (but can also be medium-sized tributary rivers like the  . There are many exceptions to these patterns owing to inconsistent usage of the relevant terms in different forms of Chinese and English over time, and also due to cultural attitudes about proper usage of the terms.

Kanji

 * 1) creek
 * 2) inlet
 * 3) bay

Etymology 1
→

From. The ye pronunciation merged with e in. The merged sound was ye until the, which is found in Yedo, yen and .

This term was so representative of the ye reading that it lent its shape to the.

Noun

 * 1) inlet, bay
 * 2)  general term for a large body of water
 * 3) sea
 * 4) large river
 * 5) lake

Usage notes
Although 江 (e) was sometimes used generically for a large body of water, it was most often used to indicate the portion of that body of water that extended inland.

Derived terms

 * : Edo (now Tokyo)
 * : inlet

Etymology 2
→ →

From.

The reading, so likely a later borrowing.

Noun

 * 1)  large river

Proper noun

 * : the Yangtze River
 * 1) old name for : Lake Biwa

Derived terms

 * : the Yangtze River and the Yellow River

Etymology 3
Various nanori readings.

Particle

 * 1) * 1977, 週刊文春1977年1月13日号
 * 1) * 1977, 週刊文春1977年1月13日号

Particle

 * 1)  Identical in meaning to the particle, but used only after pronunciations of , , and.

Etymology
From.

Han character

 * 1) (only in compounds) river