Where does “行間” come from?

行間 (Japanese) comes from Japanese 間, from Middle Chinese 間.

行間 (Japanese): a line gap, the white space between the left/bottom of one line and the right/top of the next line, corresponding to the original "leading" in letterpress printing

Definitions

  1. a line gap, the white space between the left/bottom of one line and the right/top of the next line, corresponding to the original "leading" in letterpress printing

Ancestry of “行間”, step by step

行間 traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.

via Japanese 間

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese間interval; "suffixes some expressions of time to...
2Middle Chinese間—

via Japanese 行

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese行a line of text; a row of a matrix; Abbreviation...
2Middle Chinese行—
Every word from Middle Chinese 間 →Every word from Japanese 間 →