Angel in Japanese is 天使, said tenshi. 天, heaven, has four strokes under the radical 大, and 使, envoy, has eight under the person radical 亻, so an angel is literally a messenger from heaven. The katakana loanword エンジェル (enjeru) exists too. Written in hiragana tenshi is てんし, and in katakana テンシ.
Angel in Japanese
Angel in Japanese is 天使, and you will see it most often under a baby photo. A new mother posts her son asleep with his fists by his ears and three words: うちの天使 (uchi no tenshi), our angel. Nobody reading it thinks of wings or scripture.
That is the double life of the word, and English has it too. 天使 is the winged messenger of the Bible, the Quran and a thousand paintings. It is also any person gentle or good enough to seem sent from somewhere better: a sleeping child, a kind stranger, a nurse on a night shift.
What English does not have is the word’s older career. Before it meant angel, 天使 meant an envoy of the emperor, and in one medieval travel diary it named the messengers of the king of hell.
Tenshi Meaning
Tenshi (天使) means angel, a spiritual being who carries the will of God to people and watches over them, in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In hiragana it is てんし, in katakana テンシ, and it is said “ten-shee,” three beats.
The second meaning is a kind, pure-hearted person. The set phrase is 白衣の天使 (hakui no tenshi), the angel in white, which means a nurse. The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Japan’s largest historical dictionary, finds it in a novel published from 1904 to 1906.
The older meanings are the surprise. In medieval Japanese, 天使 could mean an envoy sent by the emperor, the Son of Heaven, and a travel diary from around 1223 uses it for the messengers of Enma, the king of the underworld, who come to collect the dead. The Christian sense arrived later. The dictionary’s first example of 天使 as a translation of angel is Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Seiyō Jijō (Conditions in the West), published from 1866 to 1870.
Before that, Japanese Christians borrowed the Portuguese word. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries an angel was アンジョ (anjo), and a devotional book printed in 1599 speaks of the anjo appointed as protectors, using お守り (omamori), the same word as the omamori charm sold at shrines today.
The modern loanword エンジェル (enjeru), from English, turns up in brand names and pop songs. An older spelling, エンゼル (enzeru), survives on sweets.
The Kanji for Angel: 天使
- Characters: 天使, read てんし (tenshi)
- 天: on’yomi テン (ten); kun’yomi あめ (ame) and あま (ama), as in 天の川 (amanogawa), the Milky Way; four strokes; radical 大 (big), Kangxi radical 37; taught in first grade
- 使: on’yomi シ (shi); kun’yomi つか(う) (tsukau, to use); eight strokes; radical 亻 (person), Kangxi radical 9; taught in third grade
- General meaning: angel; a messenger from heaven; by extension a gentle, pure-hearted person
Both are everyday characters. 天 appears in 天気 (tenki, weather), and 使 in 使う (tsukau), to use, one of the first verbs learners meet.
Japanese Symbol for Angel
天 is a person seen from the front, 大, with a line above the head. In the oldest Chinese writing that top was drawn as a large head, and the meaning climbed from the crown of the head to the sky above it. Heaven, in other words, starts just above you. 天 runs through words about the sky and about what is given rather than earned: 天国 (tengoku, heaven), 天才 (tensai, genius, a heaven-sent talent) and 天井 (tenjou, the ceiling).
使 is the person radical 亻 beside 吏, which supplies the sound and, in early forms, was the same character as 史 and 事. It pictured someone sent out on business, often ritual business, and the character still means both to use and to send. That is why it fills the vocabulary of diplomacy: 大使 (taishi, ambassador), 使者 (shisha, messenger), 使命 (shimei, a mission), and 遣唐使 (kentoushi), the envoys Japan sent to Tang China.
Put together, 天使 files the angel alongside the ambassador. Dictionaries list it in exactly that company, beside 大使 and 勅使 (chokushi, an imperial envoy), under the sense of a person sent to do an errand. An angel, in Japanese, is heaven’s diplomat.
How to Write 天使 in Japanese
Twelve strokes: four for 天, eight for 使.
天 is two horizontals and a person. Write the top horizontal, then the second one. Then the left-falling sweep, starting at the top line, passing through the second line and curving down to the left. Last, the right-falling stroke, leaving the sweep just under the second line and flaring out at the bottom right.
Watch where that sweep starts. If it pokes up above the top line you have written 夫 (otto), husband. With a single horizontal it is 大 (dai, big). A dot under it gives 太 (futoi, thick), and a dot at the top right gives 犬 (inu), the dog of dog in Japanese.
使 starts with the person radical: a short sweep down to the left, then a vertical. Then the right side. The short horizontal on top, then the box 口 in three strokes. Then the long stroke that drops from above the horizontal, straight through the box, and sweeps down to the left. The right-falling stroke closes the character.
The look-alike to fear is 便 (ben, convenience, as in 便利 benri), which has a horizontal inside its box. 使 keeps the box open.
How to Say Angel in Japanese
Tenshi is three beats, te-n-shi: “ten-shee,” with the n held as a beat of its own and no stress on any syllable. Say it flat and even. The loanword enjeru is four beats, e-n-je-ru, with the r tapped.
Real sentences:
- 天使みたいな寝顔だね。(Tenshi mitai na negao da ne.) He sleeps like an angel.
- うちの子は天使です。(Uchi no ko wa tenshi desu.) Our child is an angel.
- 彼女は白衣の天使だ。(Kanojo wa hakui no tenshi da.) She is an angel in white, a nurse.
- ガブリエルは大天使です。(Gaburieru wa daitenshi desu.) Gabriel is an archangel.
- 天使と悪魔の戦い。(Tenshi to akuma no tatakai.) The battle between angels and devils.
The last sentence pairs 天使 with 悪魔 (akuma), the Devil, whose characters are explained on demon in Japanese. Japanese folklore’s own monster, the horned oni, is a different creature and never an angel’s opposite.
Words and Compounds With 天使
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 天使 | tenshi | angel |
| 大天使 | daitenshi | archangel, such as Michael or Gabriel |
| 堕天使 | datenshi | fallen angel; in Christian usage, the Devil |
| 熾天使 | shitenshi | seraph |
| 智天使 | chitenshi | cherub |
| 白衣の天使 | hakui no tenshi | angel in white, a nurse |
| 守護天使 | shugo tenshi | guardian angel |
| エンジェル | enjeru | angel, the English loanword |
The Catholic tradition ranks angels in nine choirs, and Japanese names every one of them with 天使: 熾天使 at the top, then 智天使 and the rest, down to 大天使 at eighth and plain 天使 at ninth. In that ranking the archangels sit second from the bottom.
堕天使 is the one fans know. It means a fallen angel, Lucifer above all, and in anime and games it has become shorthand for a dark, glamorous rebel.
Angel in Japanese Culture
Japan had beings in its sky long before missionaries brought winged ones. Buddhism carried in 天人 (tennin) and 天女 (tennyo), celestial men and women of the heavenly realms. They do not have wings. They fly on flowing robes and long scarves, and you can see them drifting across temple ceilings and the painted walls of old halls.
Their most famous story is the swan maiden. A celestial woman bathes and leaves her feather robe on the shore. A man hides it, and without it she cannot fly home, so she stays and marries him, until the day she finds the robe and returns to the sky. The Noh play Hagoromo, The Feather Robe, tells a gentler version in which the fisherman gives the robe back in exchange for her dance. Encyclopedias even read Kaguya-hime, the moon princess of the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, as a cousin of the angel: a visitor from above who blesses the house she stays in and is called home in the end.
The winged angel came with Christianity and settled into pop culture. The confectioner Morinaga uses an angel as its logo, and its Chocoball sweets carry the older spelling to this day. Every child who opens a box checks the little flip-up beak for a 金のエンゼル (kin no enzeru), a gold angel, which wins a mystery can of toys on its own. Silver angels take five. And online, angels have their own set of faces, gathered in our angel kaomoji.
For the Japanese gods themselves, start with god in Japanese and our page on kami.
As a Tattoo
天使 is one of the safer word tattoos, as long as you know how it reads. A Japanese reader sees an ordinary noun, angel, with the same sweetness the English word has. It does not read as religious unless the design around it does.
Never use 使 alone. It means to use, and on skin it reads like a label on a machine. 天 alone is a different matter: it reads as heaven or sky, a strong character with its own meaning, but not as angel.
Check the homophones. Tenshi is also 天子, the Son of Heaven, a title for an emperor. If someone types your tattoo by sound, make sure the second character is 使, not 子.
Know the neighbours. 堕天使 (datenshi), fallen angel, reads as anime and game vocabulary to many Japanese readers. 守護天使 (shugo tenshi), guardian angel, is a real phrase but a long, wordy one on skin. Kanji set side by side form dictionary words, not a sum of ideas.
On script: 天使 is written identically in Japanese, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese, and in Mandarin, read tiānshǐ, it also means angel. There is no form to choose between. The look-alikes are the risk: 夫 for 天 and 便 for 使 are both one stroke away.
Twelve light strokes hold up at small sizes. Keep the box in 使 open so it does not fill.
Confirm with a native speaker before you ink. You can preview the characters in vertical and horizontal layouts with the Japanese Tattoo Generator, and read the wider background in our guides to japanese tattoo meanings and irezumi.
Related Kanji
For more characters from heaven and below it, browse the kanji library.
Sources and Further Reading
- 常用漢字表 (Cabinet Notice No. 2 of 2010), Agency for Cultural Affairs the readings テン, あめ and あま for 天 and シ and つかう for 使
- 天 in KANJIDIC2, WWWJDIC, Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group four strokes, radical 37 and first-grade status
- 天使, Digital Daijisen, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten and Nipponica (Kotobank) the meanings, the 1223 messenger of Enma, Fukuzawa's Seiyō Jijō, the nine ranks, and tennin and tennyo as Japan's counterparts
- アンジョ, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (Kotobank) the Portuguese anjo in Christian texts and the 1599 devotional book
- チョコボール, Morinaga and Co. the gold and silver angels on the Chocoball beak and the toy can they win
FAQ
How do you say angel in Japanese?
The word is tenshi, written 天使 and said “ten-shee,” three even beats. It covers both the angel of religion and a sweet or kind person, exactly as English does. Japanese also has the loanword エンジェル (enjeru), used mostly in brand names and song lyrics.
What is the kanji for angel?
The kanji for angel is 天使, twelve strokes. 天, four strokes, means heaven or sky. 使, eight strokes, means envoy or to use, and it is the same character that appears in 大使 (taishi), ambassador. Together they say messenger from heaven, the same idea as the Greek root of the English word.
What does tenshi mean in Japanese?
Tenshi means angel. In everyday speech it also means an angelic person: 天使みたいな寝顔 is a face that sleeps like an angel’s, and 白衣の天使 is a nurse. In older texts 天使 meant an emperor’s envoy. Be careful with the homophone 天子 (tenshi), the Son of Heaven.
What is the difference between tenshi and tennyo?
天使 (tenshi) is the angel of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, usually drawn with wings. 天女 (tennyo) is a celestial woman from Buddhist tradition who flies on floating robes and scarves, the heroine of the feather robe legend. Japanese art had tennyo for centuries before the winged angel arrived.
Is 天使 the same in Chinese?
Yes. 天使 is written identically in Japanese, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese, and in Mandarin, read tiānshǐ, it also means angel. A Chinese reader and a Japanese reader will understand a 天使 tattoo the same way. Only the pronunciation changes.