sake

See also Sake, saké, and sa kê

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English sake (“sake, cause”), from Old English sacu (“cause, lawsuit, legal action, complaint, issue, dispute”), from Proto-Germanic *sakō (“affair, thing, charge, accusation, matter”), from Proto-Indo-European *sag- (“to investigate”). Akin to West Frisian saak, Low German sake, Dutch zaak "cause, thing", German Sache "thing, legal cause", Danish sag, Swedish sak, Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌺𐌾𐍉 (sakjo, “dispute, argument”), Old English sōcn (“inquiry, prosecution”), Old English sēcan (“to seek”). More at soke, soken, seek.

Pronunciation

• enPR: sāk, IPA: /seɪk/, X-SAMPA: /seIk/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪk

Noun

sake (plural sakes)

1. Cause, interest or account.
   • For the sake of argument
2. Purpose or end; reason.
   • For old times' sake
3. The benefit or regard of someone or something.
   • 1897, Winston Churchill, chapter 1, The Celebrity^[1]:

     When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me.

   • 2005, Plato, Sophist. Translation by Lesley Brown. 242a-b.

     But it will be for your sake that we'll undertake to refute this thesis, […]

4. (obsolete except in phrases) Contention, strife; guilt, sin, accusation or charge.
   • And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. — Genesis 3:17

Usage notes

• The word sake is generally used in constructions of the form "for X's sake" or "for the sake of X", where X is a noun. (See the quotations above, for sake of, and for the sake of.)

• Garner's Modern American Usage notes it is common to write an apostrophe rather than apostrophe–ess in this construction when the noun ends in an /s/ or /z/ sound: for appearance' sake, for goodness' sake.

Derived terms

• for Christ’s sake
• for fuck's sake
• for God’s sake
• for heaven’s sake
• for sake of
• for the sake of
• for the sake of it

Translations

cause, interest or account

• Khmer: please add this translation if you can
• Mirandese: please add this translation if you can
• Portuguese: causa (pt) f

• Spanish: causa (es) f
• Tamil: please add this translation if you can
• Telugu: please add this translation if you can

purpose or end; reason

• Catalan: please add this translation if you can
• Danish: please add this translation if you can
• Dutch: -halve (nl), wille (nl)

• Khmer: please add this translation if you can
• Portuguese: razão (pt) f, motivo (pt) m
• Spanish: razón (es) f, motivo (es) m

benefit

• Khmer: please add this translation if you can
• Latin: grātia (la) f

• Portuguese: bem (pt) m
• Spanish: bien (es) m

contention, strife; guilt

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

• Danish: skyld (da)
• Dutch: belang (nl) n, wil (nl) m
• German: Willen m
• Icelandic: í þágu (is)

• Norwegian: skyld (no) f
• Portuguese: causa (pt) f
• Welsh: mwyn

Etymology 2

From Japanese 酒 (さけ, sake), any alcoholic drink.

Alternative forms

• saké, saki

Pronunciation

• enPR: säkĕ, IPA: /sɑːkɛ/, X-SAMPA: /sA:kE/
  • Rhymes: -ɑːkɛ
• enPR: säkē, IPA: /sɑːki/, X-SAMPA: /sA:ki/
  • Rhymes: -ɑːki

Noun

sake (plural sakes)

Sake on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

1. (countable and uncountable) Rice wine, a Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice.

Synonyms

• rice wine

Translations

Japanese rice wine

• Afrikaans: please add this translation if you can
• Ainu: サケ (sake)
• Arabic: ساكي (ar) (sake, saakiy) m
• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Bulgarian: саке (bg) (sake) n
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 清酒 (cmn) (qīngjiǔ), 日本酒 (cmn) (rìběnjiǔ)

• Dutch: sake (nl) m
• Esperanto: sakeo (eo)
• Finnish: sake (fi)
• French: saké (fr) m
• German: Sake (de) m
• Hebrew: סאקה (he)
• Hungarian: szaké (hu)
• Icelandic: hrísgrjónavín (is) n, sake (is) n
• Indonesian: sake (id)

• Italian: sakè (it) m
• Japanese: 酒 (ja) (さけ, saké), 日本酒 (ja) (にほんしゅ, nihonshu), 清酒 (ja) (せいしゅ, seishu)
• Javanese: please add this translation if you can
• Korean: 일본주 (ko) (ilbonju) (日本酒 (ko)), 술 (ko) (sul)
• Lithuanian: sakė (lt)
• Macedonian: саке (mk) (sáke) n
• Malay: sake (ms)
• Norwegian: sake (no) m
• Polish: sake (pl) n
• Portuguese: saqué (pt) m (Portugal), saquê (pt) m (Brazil)
• Russian: сакэ (ru) (saké) n (indeclinable), саке (ru) (saké) n
• Spanish: sake (es)
• Thai: สาเก (th)
• Turkish: sake (tr)
• Vietnamese: sake (vi)

See also

• awamori
• shochu

Statistics

• Most common English words before 1923: wouldn't · success · instance · #906: sake · justice · offer · promise

Anagrams

• akes, aske, keas

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Finnish

Noun

sake

1. sake (Japanese rice wine)

Declension

Declension of sake (type nalle) singular plural nominative sake saket genitive saken sakejen sakein1 partitive sakea sakeja accusative sake saken saket inessive sakessa sakeissa elative sakesta sakeista illative sakeen sakeihin adessive sakella sakeilla ablative sakelta sakeilta allative sakelle sakeille essive sakena sakeina translative sakeksi sakeiksi instructive – sakein abessive saketta sakeitta comitative – sakeineen 1) Rare.

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Japanese

Romanization

sake

1. See さけ

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Polish

Etymology

From Japanese 酒 (sake), any alcoholic drink.

Pronunciation

• IPA: [ˈs̪akɛ]

Noun

sake n (indeclinable)

1. sake

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Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA: [ˈsa̠.ke̞]
• Homophone: saque

Etymology

From Japanese 酒 (sake), any alcoholic drink.

Noun

sake m (plural sakes)

1. sake, Japanese rice wine