Yahoo!Japan辞書質問

[Takoyaki]

I am really new to the whole Japanese-Japanese world of dictionaries, so bear with me.

I couldn't find 悩める in any of my english-japanese dictionaries or Edict. It was from the phrase 悩める年頃. Since it wasn't being used as a potential form of 悩む in this case, I needed something more than that. I found the below defintion, (the second part), but I can't figure out the usage notes.



What is the little 文　in the box, and what are マ下一 and マ下二?

Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

[Yudan Taiteki]

The stuff before the definition tells you the source of the word and the conjugation.

動 means a verb. マ means a ma-gyou verb (that is, the root ends in a m-consonant syllable), and 下一 describes the type of conjugation -- this is usually called an ru-verb or an ichi-dan verb in English.

Next it shows you the classical form of the word (which is what 文 means here) -- なやむ, which was a ma-gyou 下二 verb (this type of verb does not exist in modern Japanese). Almost all verbs in the modern language that end in -eru developed from an underlying verb ending in -u.

[fielle]

I am a bit confused, Yudan, because 悩む is a currently-used verb, is it not? Or did the meaning change at some point in the past, and change from the transitive meaning of 苦しめる to the current meaning of something similar to 困る or 心配する?

[Yudan Taiteki]

I am a bit confused, Yudan, because 悩む is a currently-used verb, is it not? Or did the meaning change at some point in the past, and change from the transitive meaning of 苦しめる to the current meaning of something similar to 困る or 心配する?

悩む is a current verb but it's 五段 rather than 下に段 (since 下二 no longer exists). I think the only purpose of that is to show the source of the verb 悩める; it doesn't necessarily mean the underlying verb is no longer used. But this is all guesswork; the original poster didn't even specify the dictionary he was using, so it's impossible to say for sure. The introduction to the dictionary would probably give some helpful information.

[Takoyaki]

I thought I had specified the dictionary I used in my thread title. It was simply http://www.yahoo.co.jp/ They have a dictionary function by selecting a button at the top of the page right above the search box.

Thank you for the explanation. Sorry for not being clearer.