-san

See also: Appendix:Variations of "san"

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese さん (san, “Mr, Ms”).

Suffix

-san

(informal, chiefly Japanophilic slang) Honorific ending used to indicate that a person is Japanese, talking with a Japanese, or treated like a Japanese.
- 1983 August 1, “Japan: Tanaka-San’s Decline and Rise”, in Time‎^[1], archived from the original on 7 December 2025
- 2008 December 16, “Barack Obama-san”, in Wall Street Journal‎^[2], archived from the original on 3 May 2015
- 2009 January 31, Beth Wechsler, “Obama-san! President's book of speeches is a huge hit in Japan”, in WalletPop‎^[3], archived from the original on 12 May 2009

Related terms

Translations

Japanese honorific ending

Chinese:
Mandarin: 桑 (zh) (-sāng) (rare, usually translated with honorific titles as in English - Mr, Mrs, Miss)
French: -san (fr)
Japanese: さん (ja) (-san)
Korean: 상 (ko) (sang)
Russian: -сан (ru) m or f (-san)
Thai: ซัง (th) (sang)

Mr — see Mr

Ms — see Ms

Mrs — see Mrs

Miss — see Miss

Mx — see Mx

Anagrams

ANS, NAS, NAs, NSA, SNA, ans, ans.

Azerbaijani

Suffix

preceding vowel
a / ı / o / u	e / ə / i̇ / ö / ü
-san	-sən

-san

Form of -sən after the vowels A / I / O / U.

Irish

Alternative forms

-sean (used after palatalized consonants and front vowels)

Etymology

From Old Irish -som (3rd person singular masculine/neuter; 3rd person plural).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /sˠən̪ˠ/, /sˠənˠ/

Suffix

-san

emphatic suffix of the following persons; used after velarized consonants and back vowels
1. third-person singular masculine
2. third-person plural

Usage notes

Spelled with a hyphen after -s, otherwise without a hyphen.

Added to nouns (or adjectives modifying a noun) in the presence of the possessive adjective to emphasize the possessor rather than the thing possessed:
a mhadrasan ― his dog

a gcarr deargsan ― their red car
Added to pronouns (both simple and prepositional) to add emphasis (not to create a reflexive pronoun):
as-san ― out of him

siadsan, iadsan ― they, them
Added to synthetic verb forms to add emphasis to the subject (third-person plural only as there are no third-person singular synthetic forms):
chualadarsan ― they heard

Derived terms

Japanese

Romanization

-san

Rōmaji transcription of さん

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish -som (3rd person singular masculine/neuter; 3rd person plural).

Suffix

-san

-self, -selves (emphatic)

Usage notes

Added to prepositional pronouns to add emphasis (not to create a reflexive pronoun).
Used in third-person singular masculine (eg aigesan).
Used in third-person plural (eg orrasan).
When the last letter of the prepositional pronoun is s, a hyphen is put before the suffix (eg leis-san).

Derived terms

Scottish Gaelic terms suffixed with -san

Uzbek

Etymology

Inherited from Chagatai سن (sän), from Proto-Turkic *sẹ-n, oblique of *sẹ (“you, thou”). Doublet of sen (“you, thou”, second-person singular personal pronoun).

Cognate with Uyghur ـسەن (-sen) and Old Turkic 𐰾𐰤 (sän). Compare also Tuvan сен (sen); Kazakh -сің (-sıñ) / -сың (-syñ), Turkish -sin / -sün / -sın / -sun, etc.

Pronunciation

This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA then please add some!

Hyphenation: -san

Suffix

-san

Forms the second-person singular personal predicative form of a noun: (you) are
(auxiliary) Forms several tenses of a verb.

Irish emphatic suffixes
	person		after a broad consonant	after a slender consonant
singular	first		-sa	-se
	second		-sa	-se
	third	m	-san	-sean
	third	f	-sa	-se
plural	first		-na	-ne -e (after nn in pronouns)
	second		-sa	-se
	third		-san	-sean