百合
ゆり
yuri
= lily (flower); girls’ love genre in manga/anime
百合 (yuri) carries two distinct meanings in Japanese — one rooted in nature, one in modern storytelling. As a flower, the lily has graced Japanese poetry and ritual for centuries; as a genre label, it names a rich tradition of manga and anime depicting romantic bonds between women.
In its literal sense, 百合 refers to the lily flower, a plant native to Japan’s mountainous regions and beloved for its large, fragrant blossoms. White lilies in particular are associated with purity and dignity, making them a staple of both wedding arrangements and funeral offerings.
In contemporary pop culture, 百合 has become the standard Japanese term for the Girls’ Love (GL) genre — manga, anime, novels, and games that center on romantic or emotional relationships between female characters. The tone ranges from gentle, emotionally charged stories to more explicit romance, but the label itself is genre-neutral. It is the female counterpart to 薔薇 (bara) / BL (Boys’ Love).
In casual conversation, context almost always makes the intended meaning clear: a florist or a poem will mean the flower; a manga recommendation will mean the genre.
English speakers sometimes assume 百合 is purely a flower word and are caught off guard when a Japanese friend uses it to describe a manga genre. If someone says “百合が好き”(I like yuri), the context — bookshelf vs. garden — is your guide.
Note also that 百合 as a genre label is not considered slang; it appears in mainstream publisher catalogs and dedicated magazine titles. Using it in conversation about media is completely natural.
Finally, 百合 is a common given name for women (written 百合 or ゆり in hiragana), so pay attention to whether someone is talking about a person, a flower, or a genre.
百合 combines two kanji with a poetic logic. 百 (hyaku) means “hundred” or “many,” while 合 (gō/au) means “to fit together” or “to combine.” Together they evoke the image of many petals layering and overlapping to form the lily’s distinctive bloom — a visual description rather than a phonetic borrowing. This compound is ateji-adjacent in that the characters were chosen for their imagery, not their original Chinese pronunciation.
Everyday use
庭に白い百合が咲いていて、とても良い香りがする。
Niwa ni shiroi yuri ga saite ite, totemo yoi kaori ga suru.
White lilies are blooming in the garden and they smell wonderful.
Casual / Social Media
最近百合マンガにはまってる！おすすめある？
Saikin yuri manga ni hamatteru! Osusume aru?
I’ve been really into yuri manga lately! Any recommendations?
Formal / Cultural context
百合は日本では純潔を象徴する花として、冠婚葬祭の場で広く用いられます。
Yuri wa Nihon de wa junketsu wo shōchō suru hana toshite, kankon sōsai no ba de hiroku mochiiraremasu.
In Japan, the lily is widely used at ceremonial occasions such as weddings and funerals as a flower symbolizing purity.
As a flower, the lily occupies a layered symbolic space in Japan. White lilies (白百合, shirayuri) are closely tied to purity and the sacred — they appear at Shinto shrines, Buddhist altars, and Christian ceremonies alike, partly because Western missionary influence in the Meiji era reinforced the lily’s association with the Virgin Mary. At funerals, white lilies are one of the few flowers considered appropriate alongside chrysanthemums, making 百合 a bloom that Japanese people encounter at some of life’s most solemn moments.
The genre meaning of 百合 traces back to the 1970s. The pioneering gay men’s magazine 薔薇族 (Barazoku, ‘Rose Tribe’) gave its name to male same-sex content, and a column for female readers was called 「百合族のへや」 (‘Room of the Lily Tribe’) — framing women who loved women as a counterpart flower. The label gradually shifted from a reader identity to a genre descriptor, and by the 2000s dedicated 百合 anthologies and magazines had established it as a recognized publishing category. Today, mainstream bookstores carry dedicated 百合 shelves, and the genre enjoys a substantial domestic and international readership.