Here are two generic ways of referring to nausea:
吐き気 (hakike: nausea; sickness in the stomach)
to vomit + intention to do something
Wow, hakike is fun to say!
悪心 (oshin: nausea; urge to vomit) bad + heart
Oh, geez. Now we’re talking about a bad heart as the root of nausea! How difficult medical school must be in Japan!
We turn now to specific types of nausea:
船酔い (funayoi: seasickness) ship + drunk, motion sickness
Ha! Seasickness is akin to alcohol-induced nausea! Or maybe this term originated with drunken sailors. Or perhaps the boat itself was drunk! Preposterous, you say? Not so fast. One of my favorite restaurants in Berkeley is called The Drunken Boat (actually, Le Bateau Ivre), named (I think) after another restaurant of the same name in France. But I’m sorry—I’ve gotten off track. The real point is that 酔 can also mean “motion sickness.”
乗物酔い (norimonoyoi: motion sickness)
to ride + thing + motion sicknessHere’s 酔 again. This is the kind that comes from “riding” (乗) a “thing” (物). Fun!
車酔い (kurumayoi: car sickness) car + motion sickness
宇宙病 (uchūbyō: space nausea) universe + space + sickness
This isn’t airsickness. Rather, only astronauts get to experience 宇宙病.
航空病 (kōkūbyō: airsickness) to navigate + air + sickness
This is airsickness. And the long vowels in every syllable indicate that the airsickness lasts a long time! The first kanji, 航, looks like 船, which popped up in the word for seasickness. Both contain the “boat” radical, 舟.
高山病 (kōzanbyō: altitude sickness)
tall + mountain + sicknessI love this: “tall mountain sickness”!
悪阻 (tsuwari or oso: morning sickness)
unpleasant + to obstructTsuwari is the more common yomi here but is ateji. Oso is very uncommon.
悪酔い (waruyoi: drunken frenzy; drunken sickness)
bad + drunkennessWe’re seeing 酔 for the fourth time, but this time it really does mean “drunkenness.”
Finally, some expressions linking nausea and anger, for some reason!
むかむか (mukamuka: nausea, queasy; surge of anger)
むかっと (mukatto: suddenly feeling angry (or nauseated, etc.))
嘔 (mukatsuki: getting nauseated; getting angry)
This very geometric kanji is not a Jōyō character. People usually write this word with hiragana. But the kanji sure is intriguing! It looks like someone was trying to convey something pictographically by using a mouth (口), an enclosure (匚), and an article (品). The goods are in a container, and a mouth is involved. Could the container be an ancient version of a toilet? But wait … 區 is another non-Jōyō character meaning “district, ward.” Who knows?!
