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Kanji in this term
Grade: S

Grade: S


From Middle Chinese 旦那 (MC tɑnH), 檀那 (MC dɑn nɑ), both used as transliterations of Sanskrit दान (dā́na, generosity, giving, donating).[1][2] Ultimately cognate with English donate, from Proto-Indo-European *déh₃nom.


Alternative formsEdit


旦那 (hiragana だんな, rōmaji danna)

  1. (Buddhism) generosity as one of the Buddhist perfections (पारमिता (pāramitā))
  2. (Buddhism) a donation of money, goods, or service to monks or a temple
  3. (Buddhism) a person who makes such a donation: a patron
  4. (archaic) in the Japanese medieval period, overnight visitors to a shrine or temple
  5. broadly, a patron, a husband, a master:
    1. (honorific) a master of servants, a boss of employees, the master of the house
    2. (honorific) by extension, an honorific for one's own or someone else's husband
      • Eckhardt, Carolin, “7　Julia　日本のどこがお好きっ？ [7: Julia, What Place in Japan Do You Like?]”, in 奥さま Gutenグーテン Tagターク! [Housewife Good Day!] (fiction, in Japanese), Tokyo: Shueisha:
        Danna no Takayuki wa mada oshigoto ganbatte iru tokoro desu ga, watashi wa saki ni kōhī-ya-san no arubaito kara kishita tokoro desu
        My husband Takayuki is still at work, I’ve just finished my part-time shift at a coffee shop
    3. (honorific) also by extension, used by shopkeepers to address a male customer or by an artisan to refer to one's own school or lineage
    4. (honorific) a term used by a concubine, mistress, or geisha to refer to one's own patron: a sugar daddy
    5. (honorific) a term used by female servants to refer to the mistress of the house

Usage notesEdit

The husband, master, and patron senses may be the most commonly used meanings in modern Japanese.

When referring to another person's husband, this term is often suffixed with (sama) as 旦那様 (danna-sama).

The patron sense in Buddhist contexts is often spelled 檀那.


Derived termsEdit


See alsoEdit

