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Recently I've been reading 永田カビ's 一人交換日記, and have come upon the word 通目 there, used in every "chapter" heading. Judging from context, I think this word would mean something like "entry", but I haven't been able to find it in the standard dictionaries (広辞苑 and the 国語大辞典 have it listed, but the meanings listed there are completely unrelated).

How is 通目 read? What does it mean?

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    I couldn't find a proper dictionary entry, but a lot of example sentences as shown here, as well as the title of this movie (「十三通目の手紙」"The 13th letter") seem to suggest that 通目 is an ordinal counter for letters, which makes sense since it uses the ordinal 目 (see 第{だい} vs 目{め} in forming ordinal numbers)
    – jarmanso7
    Commented Sep 3, 2023 at 22:52
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    Anyway, I gave it another thought after revisiting the linked post and attempted an answer of my own. Hopefully someone more advanced or native can confirm/refute it.
    – jarmanso7
    Commented Sep 3, 2023 at 23:03

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The word 通目 is the combination of the counter 通{つう} for letters, messages, entries, etc. (see entry 2. here), and the ordinal number suffix 目{め} (see entry 17. here):

5通の手紙。Five letters.

5通目の手紙。The 5th letter.

If I am not mistaken, as a combination of the aforementioned parts, the pronunciation then should be 通目{つうめ}. Since this instance of 通目 can be broken down to two simplier, separated entities, this is most likely why it doesn't appear as a standalone entry in dictionaries.

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    Thank you, this is perfect! Regarding the reading, I tried googling for 通目読み方 and found also the two following links which seem to confirm that the pronunciation is つうめ: (1), (2).
    – Emily
    Commented Sep 4, 2023 at 8:38

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