Meanings
kei1
- JapanA class of lightweight vehicles with small engines.
1 more example
Nissan Motor Co. revamped one of its more popular lightweight kei cars as the Japanese carmaker refreshes its aging lineup. The fourth-generation Roox will go on sale by the end of the year for ¥1.6 million ($10,800), the company said Friday. The new model has better mileage, more safety features and built-in connectivity. Kei cars account for about a third of Japan’s automobile market and the Roox, a gasoline-powered automobile initially released in 2009, has sold an average of 80,000 units per year, making it one of the more popular kei models among the three that Nissan sells. The carmaker is releasing the vehicle as it looks to cut costs, eliminate jobs and shutter factories. […] Japan’s best-selling kei car is Honda Motor Co.’s N-BOX, which sold more than 200,000 units in 2024. Nissan’s Sakura, also a kei-sized electric car that sells more than 20,000 units annually, is the best-selling battery-powered vehicle in Japan.
2025 August 21, Emi Tanimoto, “Nissan Updates Popular Kei Car as It Revamps Aging Lineup”, in Bloomberg News, archived from the original on 22 Aug 2025
kei2
- JapanaestheticA type of Japanese street fashion and music aesthetics.
Kei3
- A unisex given name from Japanese.
Origin
kei · noun
- Japanese軽自動車
- Japanese軽“lightweight”
- Englishkei
Borrowed from Japanese 軽 (kei, “lightweight”), from Japanese 軽自動車 (keijidōsha).
More words from Japanese
Full word history & related roots →kei · noun
- Japanese系“style”
- Englishkei
Borrowed from Japanese 系 (kei, “style”).
More words from Japanese
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
kei. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/kei
“kei.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/kei. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “kei,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/kei.
Source: kei on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.