愛しい and 美しい and 悲しい Looking at jisho, it seems that can either be pronounced or or . Am I right in assuming that when it is pronounced , it has the same meaning as (beautiful), and when it is pronounced , it has the same meaning as (beloved), and when pronounced as , it means (sad). For cases when it is pronounced as and , what's the difference in directly using the kanji and against using the kanji Addendum: The word seems to have drastic difference in meanings. From beloved, to sad, to beautiful! I am assuming it's main meaning is really beloved rather than the other 2?

In modern Japanese, is almost always read and means "lovely", "beloved", "dear", etc. You can safely forget the other readings (and meanings). My IME does not even convert / to .

Actually, in archaic Japanese, and did mean "lovely". I vaguely remember I learned them at high school many years ago, but this knowledge is virtually useless when you read modern Japanese text. (As an aside, () meant "embarrassed", "pathetic" or "pitiful" in old Japanese. There are many similar examples.)

If I encountered or with furigana in a modern novel, I would simply be confused first, and then guess the intended meaning purely from the context.