, also romanized as , is a Japanese word which roughly means to slog on tenaciously through tough times. The word is often translated as "doing one's best", but in practice, it means doing more than one's best. The word emphasizes "working with perseverance" or "toughing it out". means "to commit oneself fully to a task and to bring that task to an end". It can be translated as persistence, tenacity, doggedness, and hard work. The term has a unique importance in

Japanese culture Japanese culture has changed greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period, to its contemporary modern culture, which absorbs influences from Asia and other regions of the world. Since the Jomon period, ancestral ...

The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' said of

Shoichi Yokoi was a Japanese soldier who served as a sergeant in the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during the Second World War, and was one of the last three Japanese holdouts to be found after the end of hostilities in 1945. He was discovered in the jungle ...

, the

Japanese holdout Japanese holdouts () were soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the Pacific Theatre of World War II who continued fighting after the surrender of Japan at the end of the war. Japanese holdouts either d ...

who surrendered in Guam in January 1972, that in Japan "even those embarrassed by his constant references to the Emperor felt a measure of admiration at his determination and spirit". After the

1995 Kobe earthquake 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

, the slogan "" was used to encourage the people of the disaster region as they worked to rebuild their city and their lives. After the

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami On 11 March 2011, at 14:46:24 Japan Standard Time, JST (05:46:24 UTC), a 9.0–9.1 Submarine earthquake, undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approx ...

, was one of the most commonly heard expressions.

Etymology

The modern spelling is using the 頑 character to represent an unknown original lexeme. The sense was originally ''to be stubborn, to be obstinate'', with negative overtones. The modern positive sense of ''to persist, to endure'' has arisen since the end of the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

in 1868. There are three theories of the origin: * Sense shift from 眼張る (, "to keep watch on something, to stare at something", literally "keep one's eye on something") * Shift in reading from 我に張る (, literally "to stick to one's desires, to insist on one's point of view") * An unknown etymology based on the historical kana form ぐわんばる

Analysis

focuses on the importance of finishing a task and never stopping until a goal is achieved. The continuing effort to overcome obstacles (even if not successful) is an important concept in Japan. Unlike the related, but passive , is an active process. Although there are many near

synonyms A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

in Japanese, there are few

antonyms In lexical semantics, opposites are words lying in an inherently incompatible binary relationship. For example, something that is ''even'' entails that it is not ''odd''. It is referred to as a 'binary' relationship because there are two members i ...

Etymology

Analysis

See also

References

Further reading