蛍雪の功

Japanese

Kanji in this term
蛍	雪	功
けい Grade: S	せつ Grade: 2	こう Grade: 4
on'yomi

Alternative spelling
螢雪の功 (kyūjitai)

Etymology

From the stories of Jin (晋) Dynasty-era politician Che Yin (車胤, Sha In) and scholar Sun Kang (孫康, Son Kō), who were too poor to buy lamp oil and studied by the light of fireflies (蛍, kei) and the moonlight reflected off of snow (雪, setsu) outside, respectively.

Pronunciation

• (Tokyo) けーせつのこー [kèésétsú nó kóꜜò] (Nakadaka – [6])
• IPA^(key): [ke̞ːse̞t͡sɨ no̞ ko̞ː]

Noun

蛍(けい)雪(せつ)の功(こう) • (keisetsu no kō) 

1. fruit of painstaking study

References

• Shinmura, Izuru, editor (1998), 広辞苑 [Kōjien] (in Japanese), Fifth edition, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, →ISBN