難て

Japanese

Kanji in this term
難
か > が Grade: 6
kun’yomi

Alternative spelling
難て (kyūjitai)

Etymology

Originally from 難(か)てに (kateni), a negation of ancient 二(に)段(だん)活(かつ)用(よう) (nidan katsuyō) verb かつ (katsu, “to be able to do (verb)”) with に (ni), the 連(れん)用(よう)形(けい) (ren'yōkei) of ancient negative auxiliary verb ぬ (nu). Over time, this form was confused with the stem of 難(かた)し (katashi), causing the に (ni) to be reanalyzed as a non-essential case particle instead of a negation, and therefore was dropped, yielding 難(か)て (kate). The ka changes to ga as an instance of rendaku (連濁).

Suffix

難(が)て • (-gate) 

1. (archaic, obsolete, attaches to the ren'yōkei) difficult to (verb)

Derived terms

• 軈(やが)て (yagate) (through 止難(やみがて) (yamigate))