hito

Hito is a Japanese noun meaning a person or human being. It is written with the kanji 人 and read with the native kun'yomi ひと (hito). In modern Japanese, hito refers to an individual or people in general and appears in everyday phrases such as いい人だ (ii hito da, “he/she is a good person”).

In plural or collective usage, hitobito (人々) means “people” or “everyone.” The term has a broad, neutral sense and is common in narration and description. When counting people, Japanese uses the counter nin (人) after numerals (san-nin for three people, yon-nin for four, etc.), and there are special forms for one or two people, hitori and futari, which are related to the word hito.

In broader or more formal contexts, a related term is ningen (人間), which denotes human beings in a philosophical, moral, or existential sense. Ningen emphasizes humanity as a concept, whereas hito is typically used in everyday language to refer to ordinary people or persons.

Names and other uses: hito can appear as a component in proper names or fictional titles, and it may be used in various phrases to refer to persons in narrative or descriptive writing. It can also appear in dialectal or stylistic forms, but the standard everyday usage remains the simple noun meaning “a person.”

See also: hitobito; hitori; futari; ningen; jin.