最愛 saiai Beloved

最 (sai) is the superlative, most of all; 愛 (ai) is to hold someone dear, to love. Together they say most loved, and the dictionaries add what matters for a design: the word names the person as well as the feeling, so it stands alone with no person after it, and its second sense is the bond between husband and wife.

The register of 最愛 is the solemn one, the word of the letter and the law of inheritance, the eulogy and the prayer, spoken over the greatest losses because it names the greatest love, and it admits only one: a lecturer said outright in 1924 that you cannot call two people 最愛. It says most beloved and nothing about time; a design that wants forever adds a second word, and the two characters that say one thing whole are the stronger tattoo.

Beloved has been the English of 最愛 since Hepburn's dictionary of 1867, beside dearest and darling, and the words a buyer might be offered instead are each weaker: 愛妻 (aisai) the domestic wife, 恋人 (koibito) a sweetheart, 最愛の人 this word with a noun it does not need.

最愛 is composed of the kanji 最 (read sai) meaning "utmost; most; extreme" and 愛 (read ai) meaning "love; affection".

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 最愛.

Each design is Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's hand-brushed calligraphy of the word or phrase on this page, delivered as a PDF you can print. Every PDF includes the line art, so a tattoo artist or a craftsperson can work from the outline as well as the brushed image.

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