Talk:Meaw/@comment-69.132.135.58-20120816043209/@comment-24.39.244.158-20120818020651

Straight from Wikipedia: Moe (萌え?, pronounced [moe]) is a Japanese slang word. Moe is not a concrete term. It is constantly evolving and being used in many different ways. Moe is a feeling or characteristic. Despite the belief of some, moe is not a genre. The term "moe" can be tacked on to the end of any personality trait or physical trait to create a new type of moe. According to Patrick W. Galbraith it means "a rarefied pseudo-love for certain fictional characters (in anime, manga, and the like) and their related embodiments."[1][2] notes that it is a pun derived from a Japanese word that literally means "budding," as with a plant that is about to flower, and thus it can also be used to mean "budding" as with a preadolescent girl.[3] Since the word is also a homonym for "burning" pronounced moe (燃え?), there is also speculation that the word stems from the burning passion felt for the characters.[4] The word has come to be used to mean one particular kind of "adorable", one specific type of "cute", mainly as applied to fictional characters.

The word is occasionally spelled Moé, and was originally related to a strong interest in a particular type or style of character in video games, anime or manga. "Moe!" is also used within anime fandom as an interjection[citation needed]. Girls who are moe are called moekko (萌えっ娘?) from the honorific "娘" meaning "female child".