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Let's take 文 kanji for example:

I can find words for its most popular readings - もん、ぶん、ふみ:

文字、文化、文、文人【ふみひと】

But here it says there are two other readings - あや and かざる - but i can't find words for them!! (google, wiktionary, jisho.org do not help!)

Or kanji 局 - wiktionary mentions this reading しきる

But where is it used that way??

The question is How can i find words for these less popular readings?

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  • Do you mind if I ask what your purpose is?
    – user1478
    Dec 8, 2013 at 17:02
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    @snailboat: Curiosity would be a valid reason :-) Dec 9, 2013 at 6:38

2 Answers 2

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I have a solution, albeit not a good one.

I only know of one way of doing this, and it isn't free. On my iPhone I have an app called "Japanese" - a Japanese dictionary. This app is not free, but I'm sure there are other free (web)apps that can do the same things this app does. I just don't have any experience with those apps. The feature I'm talking about is allowing you to select single kanji, and see compound words or phrases containing this kanji. Just by looking up 文 and scrolling to the あや reading I can give you the following examples:

文を付ける(to make a false accusation)、文目(pattern, design)、美しい文(beautiful design).

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    It's just a thin layer over Jim Breen's EDICT and related dictionaries, which are freely available for download. There are a number of freely available interfaces to the same data, including Jim Breen's own WWWJDIC, as well as the popular jisho.org.
    – user1478
    Dec 8, 2013 at 18:18
  • The excellent Aedict on Android can do this too. Free. Dec 9, 2013 at 6:36
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Searching Japanese language dictionaries/dictionary aggregate sites like weblio.jp / kotobank.jp will usually will give you most of those readings.

On Kotobank, 文 gives separate entries for あや, ぶん, もん and ふみ. かざる shows up in the KANJIDIC2 but not for 文's entry. However, Kotobank's 飾(かざ)る entry lists examples using 文(かざ)る under 下接句. (It seems to be limited to the phrase 過ちを文る - the ateji related to usage in the Analects of Confucius).

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