胡椒（こしょう、koshou）
- pepper

胡椒 (こしょう, koshou) refers to pepper, the spice. It generally refers to black pepper, white pepper, and other varieties derived from the peppercorn plant. It is commonly used as a seasoning to add flavor and zest to various dishes.

⚫︎料理に胡椒を少し加えます。 Translation: I'll add a little pepper to the dish. ⚫︎胡椒の香りが食欲をそそる。 Translation: The aroma of pepper stimulates the appetite.

You can use 胡椒 in everyday conversation when talking about cooking or food. It's appropriate to use it when referring to the spice itself, the act of adding pepper to a dish, or describing the flavor of a dish that contains pepper. It's also common to use it in recipes or when discussing culinary preferences.

胡椒 is primarily written with kanji: 胡椒. The reading in hiragana is こしょう. There are no other common ways to write this word, nor are there significant variations in the okurigana.

There are no direct synonyms in Japanese for "pepper" itself. However, words used to refer to spices or seasonings in general could be considered related, such as 香辛料 (こうしんりょう, koushinryou) meaning "spices" or "seasoning".

There are no direct antonyms for 胡椒.

このスープは胡椒がきいていて美味しい。 ・Translation: This soup is delicious because it has pepper in it. ・Explanation: This sentence describes the taste of the soup, highlighting the presence of pepper.

私は料理にいつも胡椒を使います。 ・Translation: I always use pepper in my cooking. ・Explanation: This sentence describes the speaker's cooking habit, using 胡椒 to indicate that pepper is a regular ingredient.

The word 胡椒 is a compound word. The first character 胡 (ko) originally referred to regions and items from western or northern regions of China. The second character 椒 (shou) refers to a type of spicy plant, specifically pepper. Therefore, 胡椒 is literally "pepper from foreign lands".