uso happyaku lit. ‘eight hundred lies’
Japanese idiom, everyday. To talk nonsense or tell tall stories.
Draft Not yet checked by a native Japanese speaker.
How do people use 嘘八百
?
Everyday Japanese for a story or claim that’s nothing but lies. It’s a noun, so you hear “あれは嘘八百だ” (that’s a pack of lies) or, most often, “嘘八百を並べる” (to line up eight hundred lies). It’s dismissive and fits gossip, ads and tabloid articles.
Also said 嘘八百を並べる, 嘘八百を並べ立てる
嘘八百
in real sentences
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あれは嘘八百だ。
Are wa uso happyaku da.
That’s a pack of lies.
Tatoeba, sentence by small_snow, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
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この記事は嘘八百だ。
Kono kiji wa uso happyaku da.
This article is full of lies.
Tatoeba, sentence by small_snow, translation by urro, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does 嘘八百
come from?
Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (via Kotobank) quotes it in a haikai contest collection from 1677, so it’s at least that old. English Wiktionary explains 八百 here as “very many”, the same exaggerating number that appears in 八百屋 (greengrocer, a shop with 800 things) and 八百万の神 (the eight million gods).
Mistakes learners make with 嘘八百
Reading 八百 as はちひゃく. Like the grocer 八百屋 (yaoya), the number is fixed in its own reading, here はっぴゃく, and it stands for “countless” rather than an exact 800.
Other Japanese idioms like 嘘八百
Spot a mistake in 嘘八百
?
Send a correction, or a sentence you’d actually say with it. Everything is read before anything on this page changes.