Japanese

comparative more Japanese · superlative most Japanese

1. Of, relating to, derived from, or characteristic of Japan, its people, language, or culture.

   A Japanese saw is one that cuts on the pull stroke rather than on the push stroke.

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   In the United States, Japanese animation has had a tremendous surge in popularity over the last few years.

   Then, as I walked back to the Miyako Hybrid, the snow-white hotel, with its perfectly black parking lot and perfectly trimmed palm trees, looked more like a computer rendering of a building than a building itself. And that is very Japanese.

   2010 March 8, Fred A. Bernstein, “Culture Shock | A Taste of Japan Off the 405”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 12 Mar 2010

   Japanese retail stores have strove to, and have succeeded in, fulfilling these severe demands, and in doing so, have constantly had to innovate both technologically and institutionally in order to keep up with the competition.

   2013 February 6, Hideo Otake, “Revising the Interpretation of the Japanese Economy”, in Michio Muramatsu, Frieder Naschold, editors, State and Administration in Japan and Germany: A Comparative Perspective on Continuity and Change, page 319

   As many as 100,000 Japanese people were killed and another million injured, most of them civilians, when more than 300 American B-29 bombers dropped 1,500 tons of firebombs on the Japanese capital that night.

   2020 March 7, Brad Lendon, Emiko Jozuka, “History’s deadliest air raid happened in Tokyo during World War II and you’ve probably never heard of it”, in CNN, archived from the original on 20 Mar 2025

   1. Of or relating to the Yamato people.

      The Ainu were subject to forced assimilation by the Japanese since at least the 18th century.

plural Japaneses

1. countablein pluralA citizen or national of Japan (incl. Ryukyuans and Ainu people).

   2007 October 16, Madeleine Brand, “Japan Struggles to Meet Its CO2 Emissions Limits”, Day to Day, National Public Radio, Motoyuki Shibata isn’t a typical Japanese.

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   […] the majority of Japanese voted to return the conservative Liberal Democratic Party to power after the 3/11 disaster.

   2019, Koichi Haga, The Earth Writes: The Great Earthquake and the Novel in ..., page 82

2. countablein pluralA member of the predominant ethnic group of Japan, also found throughout the world in diaspora.

   A Japanese will typically have black hair, brown eyes, and pale skin.

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   […] 90 percent of Japanese [in Hawaii] voted Democratic (Coffman 2003: 278).

   2016, Michael Haas, How to Demolish Racism: Lessons from the State of Hawai'i, page 100

   Synonyms: Yamato

3. abbreviationellipsisuncountableEllipsis of Japanese food.

   Let’s go out to eat. I’m in the mood for Japanese.

   Synonyms: Japanee, Japanner, Japonian, Nipponese

1. A language that is primarily spoken in East Asia and is the official language of Japan.

   I’ve been studying Japanese for three years, and I still can’t order pizza in Tokyo!

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   What Japanese you speak also depends on your gender. There’s a “rough” language for men and a more “ladylike” language for women, but you must understand both.

   2021 April 25, John Malathronas, “Which languages are easiest – and most difficult – for native English speakers to learn?”, in CNN, archived from the original on 22 Mar 2022

   Synonyms: Nipponese, Nihongo