Definition of "hiragana" [hiragana]

• The cursive and flowing variety of kana used in most modern Japanese texts, especially to represent inflectional endings and particles. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Modern Japanese uses four writing systems simultaneously: kanji (based on Chinese characters), two phonetic systems called hiragana and katakana, and the Roman alphabet (romaji)."
• "The Japanese use only about 1,875 kanji characters, mostly for nouns, and write the rest of their language in phonetic characters known as hiragana and katakana."
• "(Separately, they are called hiragana and katakana)."