欲望 yokubō Desire
This is a philological study of the Japanese word 欲望 (yokubō), desire. It spans the record from the character's use around 1216 to the dictionaries of today, and examines what the word covers, where it stops short of the English, and the sense of ambition it has since let go.
Abstract
欲望, yokubō, is the standard Japanese noun for desire as craving: the wanting that comes from a lack. The Japanese dictionaries define it by that lack, and it carries two of the English word's senses outright, the eager longing and sexual desire. It does not today carry the sense of aspiration or ambition, though Kenkyūsha's Japanese-English dictionary of 1942 still glossed it an ambition; the 1983 edition does not, and Japanese has other words for that sense. The English dictionaries give it as desire, appetite, and, second or later, lust.
Overview
The sense. A standard, common noun: JMdict marks it common and gives it no usage tag [1], and no dictionary cited here marks it slang or vulgar. The Japanese definitions speak with one voice. デジタル大辞泉: 不足を感じてこれを満たそうと強く望むこと。また、その心, feeling a lack and strongly wishing to fill it; and the heart that does so. 精選版 日本国語大辞典: 不足を感じてこれを充足させようと望むこと。また、その心。ほしがること, the same, ending wanting. 日本大百科全書 reaches for psychology and for Sartre: desire as a motive whose fulfillment is held back, and desire as seeking what one lacks in order to become what one is not [2]. The one thing every definition has is the lack. The English word desire has four senses in Wiktionary: the feeling of desiring; an eager longing for something; someone or something wished for; strong attraction, particularly romantic or sexual; and motivation [3]. 欲望 carries the first and the third outright; with 性的 in front of it, 性的欲望, it is sexual desire [4]. It rarely names the thing wished for, which is 望み or 願い. It names a craving that drives, 成功に対する欲望, a desire for success [4], but it is not today's neutral word for aspiration: the word for a wish held and hoped for is 願望, 願い望むこと [5], and the word for a great ambition is 大望, read taimō and also taibō [6], which the catalogue sells as Ambition. Kenkyūsha's dictionary of 1942 still glossed 欲望 an ambition [7]; its 1983 successor does not [8].
The words. Two characters. 欲 is wanting: デジタル大辞泉 glosses it ほしがること。自分のものにしようと熱心に願い求めること。また、その気持ち, wanting something; eagerly wishing to make it one's own; and the feeling of that [9]. 望 is hoping, looking toward. The older spelling 慾望, with 心 under 欲, is the same word written with a character outside the modern list of characters for general use [10].
The text in English. The bilingual dictionaries give desire; appetite; lust, in that order (JMdict) [1], and appetition; desire; lust; appetite (the JST dictionary of scientific terms) [11]; Kenkyūsha's 新和英中辞典 gives a desire and the example 彼は欲望のとりこになっていた, He was a slave to his passions, with no lust at all [11]. Kenkyūsha in 1942: A desire; an appetite; a craving; an ambition; (経済) want [7]; in 1983, a desire, with a passion under 欲 [8]. Lust is a real gloss, and everywhere a secondary one.
The historical record
About 1216 and 1688. The character 欲. The national dictionary defines 欲 as 欲すること。願うこと。ほしがること。むさぼり求めること。また、その心。欲望。欲心。欲情, wishing; desiring; wanting; craving; and the heart that does so, with 欲望 among its synonyms, and cites the 発心集 of about 1216 and Saikaku's 日本永代蔵 of 1688 [9]. These date the character in the sense of wanting, not the compound.
The Buddhist 欲. The character has a Buddhist life that the dictionaries document for it and its compounds. 五欲 is 仏語。人間がもつ五つの欲。色・声・香・味・触の五境に対して起こす欲望, the five desires a person has, the desires that arise toward the five objects of sense: form, sound, scent, taste and touch [12]. 貪欲, greed, is in Buddhist use 三毒・十悪の一。欲望にまかせて執着しむさぼること, one of the three poisons and the ten evils: clinging and craving at the bidding of desire [13], and the three poisons are 人の善心を害する3種の煩悩。貪・瞋・痴, the three defilements that harm the good heart: greed, anger and delusion [14]. The dictionaries use 欲望 to define these words; they do not give 欲望 itself a Buddhist sense. A reader who knows the tradition may hear it in the word.
1942. Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, American edition, page 2189. yokubo. A desire; an appetite; a craving; an ambition; (経済) want [7]. The mid-century English still reaches to ambition, and to the economist's want.
1983. Kenkyūsha's New Collegiate Japanese-English Dictionary, third edition, pages 1288–1289. 欲望: a desire, with the dictionary's mark (文), and the example 欲望を満たす, gratify or satisfy one's desire(s); under 欲, a passion [8]. An ambition is gone.
Today. The dictionaries define the word by lack [2]. The modern example sentences Weblio gathers run to restraint and struggle: 欲望を抑える, to hold desire down; 私は自分自身の欲望と戦わなければならない, I must fight my own desires; 私達はこのような欲望に打ち勝たなければなりません, we must overcome desires like these; and beside them 彼女はもう夫に対して性的欲望は持っていない, she no longer feels sexual desire for her husband, and 成功に対する彼の欲望を十分に満足させるものはないように思えた, nothing seemed enough to satisfy his desire for success [4]. Weblio's list of related words sets 人欲, 淫欲 and 邪欲 beside it [4]. It is the word of a wanting that has to be managed, which is what desire is in most languages. The house title, Desire, is the head gloss of JMdict and of both Kenkyūsha dictionaries. What a rendering of 欲望 must keep is the lack: desire as the wanting of what one does not have, not desire as the thing one aims at.
What is not a source. The Buddhist 五欲 and 貪欲 are the character's company in the dictionaries [12][13], not a reading of the compound. Kenkyūsha's an ambition of 1942 is a witness to what the English once reached for [7], not to the word's sense today.
A reading
The word means what most English speakers mean by desire, and it means it without embarrassment: a standard noun, neither vulgar nor clinical. Its edge is on the far side, at ambition, where English desire still reaches, where Kenkyūsha in 1942 still let 欲望 reach, and where the word today does not; that sense belongs to 願望 and 大望. Lust is a real gloss and a secondary one: a rendering that leads with it loses the reader who meant longing, and a rendering that omits it hides a sense the word does carry. The 望 of the compound can mean ambition on its own, and that is exactly the sense the compound does not serve.
References
- JMdict (EDRDG), 「欲望」, at gokanji. https://new.gokanji.com/word/欲望
- 「欲望」, デジタル大辞泉 · 精選版 日本国語大辞典 · 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/欲望-653765
- "desire", Wiktionary (English), noun. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/desire
- 「欲望」の例文・使い方・用例・文例 and 関連用語, at Weblio 辞書. https://www.weblio.jp/content/欲望
- 「願望」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/願望-471456
- 「大望」, デジタル大辞泉 · 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/大望-558348
- Takenobu Yoshitarō, ed., Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, American edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1942, p. 2189.
- Kenkyusha's New Collegiate Japanese-English Dictionary (新和英中辞典), 3rd ed., Kenkyusha, Tokyo, 1983, pp. 1288–1289.
- 「欲」, デジタル大辞泉 · 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/欲-653651
- KANJIDIC, 慾, at kanjiapi.dev. https://kanjiapi.dev/v1/kanji/慾
- 「欲望」, JST科学技術用語日英対訳辞書 · 研究社『新和英中辞典』, at Weblio 英和・和英辞典. https://ejje.weblio.jp/content/欲望
- 「五欲」, デジタル大辞泉 · 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/五欲-66412
- 「貪欲」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/貪欲-564797
- 「三毒」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/三毒-71221