ten days · season

1. Origins, structure, and basic meaning

• Structure: 旬 has 6 strokes; the word 旬 is read しゅん, and 下旬 is read げじゅん.
• Basic usage: 旬 denotes the season when a food is at its best and also appears in words dividing a month into periods.

2. Common pitfalls and similar expressions

• Seasonal food and the late part of a month
  • 旬の野菜 means vegetables in season. Here 旬 refers to the season when those vegetables are good to eat, not a fixed ten-day span.
  • 三月下旬 denotes March 21 through the end of March. Since 下旬 runs through the end of the month, it is not exactly ten days in every month.