KT32 Word Line
とうへんぼく
唐変木
Tōhenboku
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Meaning
a blockhead
An insult for someone tactless, or someone unreasonable who will not listen.
Example
何度説明しても同じことを聞き返してくる唐変木だ。
No matter how many times I explain, this blockhead asks the same thing again.
Origin
The origin is unclear. Tōhenboku is recorded as another name for the chinaberry (sendan) and the Chinese mahogany (chanchin), so it may originally have meant an odd tree from China. One view holds that this overlapped with tōjin, a term of abuse for someone who could not see reason, and it became an insult for people. The form tōhenboku-me appears in the sharebon 卯地臭意 (1783).