Makurakotoba

Makurakotoba

Makurakotoba (枕詞?), literally "pillow word", are figures of speech used in Japanese waka poetry, where epithets are used in association with certain words. Their usage is akin to “grey-eyed Athena” of in the Ancient Greek epics of Homer. The set phrase can be thought of as a “pillow” for the noun or verb it describes, although the actual etymology is not fully known.

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