Some notes regarding Japanese.
Singular and plural are the same in Japanese and can only be determined from the context. For example, kimono (着物) in Japanese could mean kimono or kimonos. I use the Japanese plural form for Japanese terms, in other words, the word does not change.
A very quick introduction to the Japanese writing system to explain the way Japanese is used in this glossary.
Japanese is written in a combination of different writing systems, word-based kanji (漢字), based on Chinese characters, sound-based hiragana (ひらがな), used in combination with kanji for Japanese words, and katakana (カタカナ) mostly used for foreign language words, foreign (and scientific) names (you see it often used for plant names). Additionally, romaji (roumaji・rōmaji) is used as a way to write words in Latin alphabet (romanized).
日本語 ・ にほんご ・ nihongo
The Japanese included in the glossary lists the most common Japanese way of rendering a word, this is most often kanji but in some cases hiragana or katakana. Followed by the hiragana version for kanji based words. Followed by the romaji version. If there are alternative writings or almost identical words for the same term I have also included them here.
Romaji is used for the base entries in the glossary. There are however some differences on how some Japanese words are commonly romanized/used outside Japan and how they are "officially" romanized, I have tried to use the most common western romanization, but also included the Japanese way and sometimes wrong (?) way to make it possible to search for both.
Note that sounds like ou and uu, are sometimes romanized as ō and ū. I have included them in their "long" form.
Disclaimer: I a NOT an expert on language, these are just some practical tips to help you search.
Some words change in sound when placed behind another (combined) with another word. Some examples: the Japanese word hishi (菱) becomes -bishi when combined with another word: hanabishi (花菱). kumo (cloud) becomes -gumo: genjigumo (源氏雲). Some (染) becomes -zome: sakizome (先染). You notice that the written Japanese (kanji) does not change, only the pronunciation changes. No worries the romanized Japanese (romaji) is written the way the word is pronounced.
Apart from different rules, from a Japanese perspective, there are also some sounds that technically "do-not-exist" or "sound-the-same", and since rules for romanization are (practically) a little loose, these are often mixed when you find translated texts. Examples are "n" and "m" (tombo, tonbo), "r" and "l", "h" and "f". Now you know, and you can ignore these differences when you see them.
Occasionally you find a word when you look at the Japanese translation is written using the same characters as another word, but it sounds, and when romanized, looks totally different. The reason is that words written in kanji (Chinese characters) sometimes have a few different pronunciations. Since the characters are based on Chinese writing, that was introduced into Japan a long time ago, the old or original (Chinese) reading, called on-yomi, is frequently used (in some cases several different on-yomi readings exists for a kanji). Kanji also have a unique Japanese reading called kun-yomi, mostly based on the time before Chinese characters for words were introduced (several kun-yomi for a kanji can exist). So one kanji can have a different pronunciation but meaning the same (the old and new pronunciation, sometimes both still used), or it can have a different pronunciation based on meaning or context.
A last note, I tried to be consistent but alternative spellings for a word or slightly different ways of writing a word sometimes exist. Sometimes these are mixed inside or between entries (sometimes on purpose sometimes because I just didn't notice ;)