未婚

1. Origins, structure, and basic meaning

• Structure: 未婚 combines 未, “not yet,” with 婚, marriage, and is a noun or status expression read みこん.
• Basic usage: It denotes never-married status and appears in marital-status fields or descriptions of a person.
  • 申請書には未婚か既婚かを記入する欄があります。 asks which marital status applies, while 兄は未婚で、今は一人で暮らしています。 links the brother's unmarried status to a separate statement about his living arrangement.

2. Common pitfalls and similar expressions

• 未婚か既婚か
  • か…か presents a choice between two statuses. 既婚(きこん), already married, contrasts with 未婚.
• 未婚 and 独身
  • 未婚 focuses on not having married, while 独身(どくしん) can more broadly mean currently without a spouse; the two do not necessarily say the same thing about marital history.
• Different from living alone
  • 未婚で and 一人で暮らしている in the second example are separate pieces of linked information. Being unmarried does not by itself mean that someone lives alone.