一生懸命 isshōkenmei Do One's Very Best

Everything you have, given as if your life hung on it: the word for the effort that holds nothing back, and the ordinary Japanese praise for anyone who gives it, a student, an athlete, a worker, a fighter. Inside it is an older picture, one place, one life, the single fief a warrior would die to keep, so the word can mean a whole life staked on one thing as much as a day's hard trying, and which you hang it for is yours. The scroll brushes the word as every Japanese reader now sees it; the older spelling, 一所懸命, is the same word, and both are correct.

four-character idiom

一生懸命 is composed of the words 一生 (read isshō) meaning "one's whole life;the greatest of one's life" and 懸命 (read kenmei) meaning "eagerness; risk one's life".

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 一生懸命.

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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