Meanings
- uncountableusuallycard gamesSmall, rigid Japanese playing cards with colorful drawings of flowers and animals, a single deck consisting of 48 cards divided in 12 suits that each represent a month.
On a different occasion, he was playing hanafuda in a mountain hut with several Japanese.
2016, Ch'en Huo-ch'üan, translated by Lili Selden, Special Issue on Imperial Subject Literature in Taiwan, US-Taiwan Literature Foundation, →ISBN, The Path, page 644 more examples
A pack of "Hana-fuda" consists of 48 cards, there being 12 different denominations or figures, and each such denomination or figure being represented by 4 cards of different face values; the figures on such 4 cards of the same denomination being the same, but having certain marks upon them to indicate the difference in their respective face values.
1892, Rossetsu Uchiyama, The Game of "Hana-awase": Japanese Cards, page 1Couldn't we play with hanafuda cards instead? I asked. I had a decent amount of experience with oichokabu or koi koi thanks to playing with my mom's family in the countryside.
2013, Nagaru Tanigawa, translated by Paul Tuttle Starr, The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya, volume 2, Yen Press, →ISBNBriefly, Sin described the Hanafuda playing cards and how he had adapted them to his own ends.
2015, Anthony Horowitz, chapter 19, in Trigger Mortis: A James Bond Novel, Orion, →ISBN“What’s hanafuda?” Sam asked. “Plastic cards. Quite small and thick, with flowers and scenes of nature,” Watanabe-san said.
2022, Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Vintage (2024), →ISBN, page 74Synonyms: hwatu
Synonyms & antonyms
nounSmall, rigid Japanese playing cards with colorful drawings of flowers and animals, a single deck consisting of 48 cards divided in 12 suits that each represent a month.
Origin
From Japanese 花(はな)札(ふだ) (hanafuda), a compound of 花 (hana, “flower”) + 札 (fuda, “card”).
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Chinese Mandarin 花札
- 花札 (huāzhá)Translations
Japanese 花札
- 花札Translations
Korean 화투
- 화투 (hwatu)Translations
Polish hanafuda
- hanafudaTranslations
Russian ханафу́да
- ханафу́да (xanafúda)Translations
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with hanafuda
All rhymes →Cite this entry
hanafuda. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hanafuda
“hanafuda.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hanafuda. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hanafuda,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hanafuda.
Source: hanafuda on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.