御お御み

お

み

Meanings

honorific or polite prefix

Archaic honorific prefix, historically attached to nouns to show respect. In modern Japanese, it is largely replaced by お or ご, and survives only in a few fossilized words like おみおつけ (miso soup).

「おみおつけ」の「おみ」は古ふるい敬けい語ごの接せっ頭とう辞じです。
The おみ in おみおつけ is an old honorific prefix.

Kanji

御honorable, manipulate, govern
大large, big

Related words

お
お is the modern honorific prefix used widely in polite speech, while おみ is archaic and limited to set expressions.
ご
ご is the modern honorific prefix for Sino-Japanese words, contrasting with the native Japanese おみ which is now obsolete.

Word family

おみおつけ
miso soup

Written forms

御お御み
Rare kanji spelling; the prefix is almost always written in kana as おみ.
御お々み
Variant kanji spelling using the iteration mark 々; very rare.
大お御み
Alternate kanji spelling; rarely used.

Etymology

The prefix おみ is an ancient honorific form, likely derived from 大御 (おおみ), a combination of 大 (great) and 御 (honorable). It fell out of productive use and survives only in a few lexicalized compounds.