Kanji1 / 9
祖 kanji
ancestor, pioneer, founder
- JLPT level
- N3 (unofficial)
- First appears in
- N4 vocabulary
- Strokes
- 9
- School grade
- Grade 5 (elementary school)
On readings
ソ
Kun readings
NoneVariant forms
祖Words with 祖
LevelWord & meaningActions
- —先祖代々ancestral; hereditary; handed down from generation to generation; for generations; from generation to generation
- —父祖伝来hereditary; patrimonial; handed down from generation to generation
- —先祖伝承what has been (orally) handed down from generation to generation; legend; folk tale
- —祖先の霊ancestral spirits
- —印欧祖語Proto-Indo-European (language)
- —祖師西来the coming of Bodhidharma from western India to China
- —祖国戦争Patriotic War (Russian name for the war with Napoleon in 1812)
- —曽祖父母great-grandparents
- —皇祖皇宗ancestors of the Imperial Family
- —共通祖先common ancestor
- —祖先形質plesiomorphy; ancestral character
- —六祖壇経Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch; Platform Sutra
- —先祖返りreversion; atavism
- —卵祖細胞oogonium
- —日琉祖語Proto-Japonic (language); Proto-Japanese; Proto-Japanese-Ryukyuan
- —御高祖頭巾okoso-zukin; kerchief covering the whole head (except eyes), worn by women in winter from the Edo period until Meiji
- —先祖の位牌ancestral tablet
- —日ユ同祖論Japanese-Jewish common ancestry theory
- —お祖師さまthe founder of our sect (esp. in reference to Nichiren)
- —大祖国戦争Great Patriotic War (Russian name for the war along the eastern front during World War II)