ボケ – The Japanese Meaning of Bokeh
In English, bokeh is a word to represent a style of photography where things are out of focus. This word originally though, came from Japanese. The Japanese meaning of bokeh compared to English represents more concepts. Let’s take a look at them.
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The Japanese Meaning of Bokeh
The word bokeh comes from the verb bokeru in Japanese. The original meaning for this verb was to go senile, which we will discuss in a moment.
In Japanese, it can be written 呆ける, 惚ける or just ボケる. If we want to express the word as a noun though we lose the る and it becomes the shorter ボケ or ぼけ. It was this noun form that was borrowed into English when talking about photos. But, as we will see below that is not all that ボケ stands for.
ボケる means to not be in the Right Mind
Originally the word ボケる was and still is used for people going senile when they get older. Or, it can even mean for someone to get dementia.
ボケる or ボケ does not always mean a serious mental issue. It can mean just to be out of the right mind or to not be thinking clearly. For example, there are two common compound words using ボケ below:
- 時差ぼけ – Jetlag
- 寝ぼけ – Being half-asleep
When we are jetlagged we are tired and not thinking clearly. The same goes for being half-asleep.
Bokeh, an Expression of Art or just Blurry?
Here is where we can see how ボケ became bokeh. Other than ボケ meaning someone is out of their mind, it can also mean that your camera is out of focus. The word ピンボケ means out of focus or blurry and is the source of the English word Bokeh. ピンぼけ is a shorter form of the sentence:
ピントがボケている
The focus is blurry
So, as you can see at one point during the transfer between languages Bokeh took on a more artistic and specific meaning.
ボケ is Stupid
Finally, we could not end this post without mentioning this. ボケ is also used to call people stupid. It is used mostly in western Japan. The word バカ which sounds similar but has a totally different source is used all over Japan.
So you should know how to use ボケ now in Japanese. Also if you are interested in learning Japanese I have reviewed what I consider the best resource for Japanese Grammar below:
Or, I have several other resources on this website to demystify the Japanese language. Good luck!
This is incorrect. Boke is clearly written in Katakana and so like Tempura (which is Porteguese birth) this word is not from the Kanji
I suspect it is bouquet for the same artist reason you suggest – the blur looks like an artist version of flowers which ic can be.
Hello, 江戸門戸 Scholz! Thank you for your comment and great observation. Yes, you are correct, the vast majority of Gairaigo (words from foreign languages) in Japanese are written in Katakana. The word ボケ in Kanji would be 暈け. Normally if there is a Japanese word with Kanji that is not common and you choose not to use the Kanji then you would write it in Hiragana. Not always though. In the case of ボケ it is standard to write it in Katakana. But, it would be ok to write it in Hiragana as ぼけ too.
Katakana is used for more than only representing gairaigo, which I wrote about below if you are interested.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2021/01/11/the-difference-between-hiragana-and-katakana-simplified/