Etymology

ponzu

P3O1N1Z10U1

Today it means: A sour citrus-based sauce usually made from the juice of the 橙 (daidai), an Asian variety of bitter orange, mixed with soy sauce. Full definition →

Japanese ポン酢 ← Dutch pons ← Sanskrit पञ्च
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Sanskrit · derived fromपञ्च“five”
  2. Dutch · derived frompons“punch”
  3. Japanese · borrowed fromポン酢
  4. English todayponzu

Borrowed from Japanese ポン酢 (ponzu), in turn from Dutch pons (“punch”, obsolete, superseded by punch), from English punch, ultimately from Sanskrit पञ्च (páñca, “five”). Doublet of cinque, fin (“five currency units”), finnuf, five, pimp (“five”), punch (“beverage”), and sengi (“currency”); related to Pompeii.

Words from the same roots

Sanskritपञ्च all →

punchsarpanch

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.