one of the Japanese systems of syllabic writing based on Chinese cursive ideograms. The more widely used of the two current systems, it is employed in newspapers and general literature
Compare katakana
Word origin
from Japanese: flat kana
hiragana in American English
(ˌhɪrəˈgɑnə)
noun
the more widely used portion of the Japanese kana, or syllabary, having characters that are cursive