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〜ず without / not (literary): Meaning & Examples

zu · JLPT N3

JLPT N311 textsStudy card

〜ず means “without / not (literary)”. It is a JLPT N3 pattern: below are its construction, the nuances that trip learners up, and the sentences where real Japanese writers use it.

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一枚いちまいStudy card

A free one-page study card for 〜ず (without / not (literary)), JLPT N3: what it means, how it attaches, 3 example sentences with furigana, and the nuances that trip learners up. Read it right here, or take the PDF or PNG with you. We never ask for an email for this card.

The 〜ず study card: one A4 page holding the pattern, its JLPT N3 meaning, the construction rules, 3 example sentences with furigana, and the nuance notes.
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How 〜ず works

It means what 〜ないで and 〜なくて mean, but sounds formal, terse and slightly old: 何も言わず、部屋を出た (“He left the room without a word”). Build it by taking the ない-form and swapping ない for ず — 行かない → 行かず. The one irregular every learner meets is する, which becomes せず, never ×しず. In practice you will see 〜ずに more often than bare 〜ず.

構文こうぶんConstruction

  • ない-form minus ない + ず

    傘を持たず、家を出た。 — I left the house without an umbrella.

  • 〜ずに — “without doing” (the common form)

    朝ご飯を食べずに学校へ行った。 — I went to school without eating breakfast.

  • する → せず / せずに (irregular)

    何もせずに一日が終わった。 — The day ended without my doing anything.

  • 〜ずにはいられない — “can’t help doing”

    笑わずにはいられなかった。 — I couldn’t help laughing.

例文れいぶんIn a sentence

He left the room without saying anything.
I went to school without eating breakfast.
The day ended without my doing anything.

注意点ちゅういてんNuances

  • 来る behaves regularly as 来ず (こず).
  • 〜ず and 〜ずに belong to the written register. The same idea in speech is 〜ないで, and slipping ずに into casual conversation makes you sound like a narrator.
  • Bare 〜ず can also join clauses the way a negative て-form does: 雨も降らず、風もなく — “no rain and no wind”.
  • You will meet it constantly in literature, news and signage, which makes it worth recognising long before you ever need to produce it.
How 〜ず differs from similar patterns
  • 〜ないで — 〜ないで is the everyday spoken equivalent. 食たべないで and 食たべずに mean the same thing; only the register differs.
  • 〜ぬ — 〜ぬ is the other surviving classical negative, and it works as a modifier or sentence ending (知しらぬ人ひと) where ず links clauses.
  • 〜なしに — 〜なしに attaches to nouns (許可きょかなしに, “without permission”); 〜ずに attaches to verbs.

練習れんしゅうYour Turn

Tip

Rewrite three of your own 〜ないで sentences as 〜ずに, and make sure one of them uses する so you have to reach for せずに.

〜ず (without / not (literary)) in real sentences

Each one is quoted from a published Japanese text in this library and links to the story it came from. Some use older spellings, or break off where the sentence carried on. They are transcribed exactly as their authors wrote them.

— from The Ghost's Foot (N3)

— from The Disappearance of the Express Train (N1)

— from The Smile (N1)

— from The Hermit (N2)

Appears in 11 of 367 texts in our library.

蔵書ぞうしょThe texts

11 texts in the library use 〜ず

Free to read in full. Furigana over every kanji, a dictionary on any word you tap, and an English breakdown of each sentence.

仙人 cover Read 仙人 The Hermit 芥川 竜之介 26 min read · Short Story 壇ノ浦の鬼火 cover Read 壇ノ浦の鬼火 The Ghost Fires of Dan no Ura 下村 千秋 47 min read · Short Story 番町皿屋敷 cover Read 番町皿屋敷 The Dish Mansion at Bancho 岡本 綺堂 85 min read · Short Story 木曽の怪物 cover Read 木曽の怪物 The Monster of Kiso 岡本 綺堂 22 min read · Short Story 幽霊の足 cover Read 幽霊の足 The Ghost's Foot 相馬 御風 10 min read · Short Story 慈悲心鳥 cover Read 慈悲心鳥 The Bird of Compassion 岡本 綺堂 89 min read · Short Story 妖怪記 cover Read 妖怪記 The Yōkai Record 田中 貢太郎 24 min read · Short Story 青年と死 cover Read 青年と死 Youth and Death 芥川 竜之介 24 min read · Short Story 鸚鵡 cover Read 鸚鵡 The Parrot 福士 幸次郎 5 min read · Short Story 微笑 cover Read 微笑 The Smile 夢野 久作 5 min read · Short Story 臨時急行列車の紛失 cover Read 臨時急行列車の紛失 The Disappearance of the Express Train ドイル アーサー・コナン 99 min read · Short Story

解説かいせつBackground

Where this 〜ず explanation comes from

〜ず sits at JLPT N3 in the 302-point taxonomy every text in this library is tagged against. Each text is read for the patterns it contains, which is what lets this page list every text that uses 〜ず and pull its example sentences out of them.

The example sentences were not written to demonstrate the rule. They are quoted from published Japanese texts in this library (The Ghost's Foot and The Disappearance of the Express Train among them), and each one links back to the story it came from, so you can read the sentence where it actually happened.

質問しつもんQuestions

〜ず: questions & answers

What is the difference between 〜ず and 〜ない?

They mean the same thing; the difference is register. 〜ない is ordinary modern Japanese, while 〜ず is a classical form kept alive in writing, signage and formal speech. 知らずに and 知らないで are both “without knowing”.

Why is it せずに and not しずに?

Because 〜ず attaches to an older stem of する than the modern し. The classical negative of する was せず, and that form survived intact. 勉強せずに, 気にせずに and 何もせずに are all built on it.

What does 〜ずにはいられない mean?

It means “can’t help doing” — the action is impossible to hold back: 笑わずにはいられない (“I can’t help laughing”), 考えずにはいられない (“I can’t stop thinking about it”). It is the literary counterpart of 〜てしまう’s involuntary sense.

Is there a printable 〜ず cheat sheet?

Yes. A free one-page 〜ず (without / not (literary)) study card sits at the top of this page, as both a PDF and a PNG. It carries the JLPT N3 meaning, how the pattern attaches, 3 example sentences with furigana, and the nuances learners get wrong. You do not need an account or an email address to download it.

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