Famicom

F4A1M3I1C3O1M3

noun

A Family Computer (chiefly those available within Japan).

Less commonScrabble 16
Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

nounFamicom (plural Famicoms)

plural Famicoms

  1. A Family Computer (chiefly those available within Japan).

    School students as well as middle-aged salaried workers queued up to buy one of these Famicoms.

    1988, Shoji Shiba, Yuusuke Moryiama, Shigeki Yamasaki, Masanobu Abe, S. Nakae, M. Hasimoto, K. Tuno, Y. Fukuda, M. Taki, ““Which has the Most Powerful Influence on Children: Computer Literacy, School or Home?””, in Blagovest Sendov, Ivan Stanchev, editors, Children in the Information Age: Opportunities for Creativity, Innovation and New Activities, Pergamon Press, →ISBN, page 57
    1 more example

    After a trip to Tokyo at the end of 1983, a business partner of the Stampers had sent them a Nintendo Famicom […]

    2022, Alyse Knorr, GoldenEye 007

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see
nintendo

Origin

Borrowed from Japanese ファミコン (famikon), a syllabic abbreviation of ファミリーコンピューター (famirīkonpyūtā), a wasei eigo (和製英語; pseudo-anglicism) derived from family + computer.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

Famicom. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Famicom

MLA

“Famicom.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Famicom. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Famicom,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Famicom.

Source: Famicom on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.