いろは

Japanese

Etymology 1

⟨iro₂ha⟩: */irəjpa/ → /iropa/ → /irofa/ → /iroha/

From Old Japanese.

Compound of いろ (iro, “kinship, same family”) +‎ は (ha, cognate with 母 (haha, “mother”)).

Noun

いろは • (iroha) 

1. mother

   Synonyms: 母, お母さん

   • 938, Minamoto no Shitagō, Wamyō Ruijushō, volume 1, page 116:

     母 尔雅云、母爲妣、卑履反、去聲之重、和名波々、日本紀私記云、以路波

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Derived terms

• いろはのイ (iroha no i)

Etymology 2

Alternative spellings
伊呂波 以呂波 色葉

From a pangrammatic poem written in the mid-Heian period. The earliest textual reference is from 1079 CE.

Noun

いろは • (iroha) 

1. a traditional ordering system for kana
2. (dated) the rudiments, the fundamentals, the basics (of a subject), the ABCs

Etymology 3

For pronunciation and definitions of いろは – see the following entry.

【紅葉あかは】 [proper noun] a female given name Alternative spellings 黄葉, あけは, あげは, かえで, くれは, べには, もみ, もよ

(This term, いろは (iroha), is the hiragana spelling of the above term.)