bagu

Animals in Japanese / Names List / Starting with ha は

Translation

bagu means "Bug" in English.
It's a katakanization, a loan-word.
Sometimes bagu doesn't mean the animal, see homonyms.

  • In English, the word "Bug" refers to any small insect, and even some small animals that aren't insects. A more technical definition, the term "True Bug," refers to animals of the order Hemiptera.[1][2]
  • Broad mushi 虫
    In the past, it was thought that animals were divided into "furries," kemono 獣, fishes, birds, and literally everything else was mushi 虫. Hence why the term is so broad, even today. You can tell an animal was considered to be a mushi because its kanji will have the 虫 radical. For example, "Frogs," kaeru 蛙, and "Snakes", hebi 蛇, don't have fur, so they were considered to be mushi.[3]
bagu is normally written with katakana, as バグ.
bagu written with hiragana is ばぐ.
bagu does not have kanji.
Romaji ba gu
Katakanaバグ
Hiraganaばぐ

Homonyms & Similar Words

  • bagu バグ normally refers to a computer "bug."
What is a homonym?

Trivia

  • The word mushi 虫 can be used to call someone an "Insect" in Japanese, in the insulting way.
hae ハエ
hae ハエ
gokiburi ゴキブリ
gokiburi ゴキブリ
kumo クモ
kumo クモ
kouchuu 甲虫
kouchuu 甲虫
mimizu ミミズ
mimizu ミミズ
mukade ムカデ
mukade ムカデ
imo-mushi 芋虫
imo-mushi 芋虫

Synonyms

Beware: some kanji that are difficult to handwrite are easy to type on the computer, which may skew the usage statistics.

Further Reading

Wikipedia: 虫 (Bug)
  1. What is the difference between a bug and an insect? - dictionary.com, accessed .
  2. A Bug Is Not a Beetle - theamericanscholar.com, by Priscilla Long, accessed .
  3. ふと思ったんですが、ヒルって虫ですか？ - detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp, accessed .
imo-mushi 芋虫, kabuto-mushi 兜虫, kogane-mushi 黄金虫, konchuu 昆虫, tentou-mushi 天道虫, funchuu 糞虫, mushi-hiki-abu 虫引虻.