Kana

//ˈkɑːnə// name, noun, verb

name, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The hiragana and katakana syllabaries. These are made up of characters that represent individual syllables, which are used to write Japanese words and particles. Kana are derived from kanji.
  2. 2
    A hiragana or katakana character.
Verb
  1. 1
    Alternative form of kena. Singapore, Singlish, alt-of, alternative, invariable
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A female given name from Japanese.
  2. 2
    A surname.
  3. 3
    A gewog of Dagana District, Bhutan.

Synonyms

All synonyms
charactercuneiformdeterminativehieroglyphicideogramlogogram

Example

More examples

"As a nationalist feeling, real Japanese think that the heart of their language is the phonemic Kana, not the logographic Kanji."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Japanese 仮名(かな) (kana, “phonetic character”, literally “borrowed character”, from the way that kana were originally Chinese characters "borrowed" for their phonetic values).

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Japanese 香菜 (Kana).

Etymology 3

Two main origins: * Borrowed from Czech Káňa, a variant of Kan. * Borrowed from Tamil கனா (kaṉā); this surname is predominantly found in Tamil Nadu.

Etymology 4

Borrowed from Dzongkha བཀར་ན་ (bkar na).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.