Old Japanese origin
Source-reportedMeaning: “night”
⟨yo₁ru⟩ → */jʷoru/ → /joru/ From Old Japanese, from Proto-Japonic *yoru. Derived from yo below, suffixed with an element ru of unclear meaning. Compare 日(ひ) (hi, “day”) → 昼(ひる) (hiru, “daytime”), which seems to use this same ru element. Found in the Man'yōshū, completed some time after 759 CE, with the phonetic spelling 用流. Now the most common term for night in modern Japanese.
Sources for this account (3)
- Wiktionary: 夜CC-BY-SA-4.0 · retrieved 2026-10-15
- JMnedict entry 5670744CC-BY-SA-4.0 · rev. 2026-10-15 · retrieved 2026-10-15
- KANJIDIC2: 夜CC-BY-SA-4.0 · rev. 2026-288 · retrieved 2026-10-15
