Where does “五目並べ” come from?

五目並べ (Japanese) comes from Japanese 目, from Middle Chinese 目.

五目並べ (Japanese): a traditional two‑player board game played on a Go board, in which players alternately place black and white stones with the objective of being the first to align five stones in a row vertically, horizontally, or diagonally

Definitions

  1. a traditional two‑player board game played on a Go board, in which players alternately place black and white stones with the objective of being the first to align five stones in a row vertically, horizontally, or diagonally

Ancestry of “五目並べ”, step by step

五目並べ traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.

via Japanese 目

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese目an order in biology: smaller than a class, bigger...
2Middle Chinese目—

via Japanese 五

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese五five; a name of a hole of a wind instrument
2Middle Chineseご—
Every word from Middle Chinese 目 →Every word from Japanese 目 →