gaijin

See also: gǎijìn

English

Etymology

From Japanese 外人 (gaijin, “foreigner”), from Middle Chinese 外人 (ŋuɑi^H ȵiɪn). Compare Mandarin 外人 (wàirén), from Old Chinese 外人 (*ŋʷaːds njin, “foreigner, outsider” < “non-relative”), from 外 (wài, “outside, outer”) + 人 (rén, “person”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: gīʹjĭnʹ
• IPA^(key): /ˈɡaɪˌd͡ʒɪn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

gaijin (plural gaijin or gaijins)

1. (from the perspective of a Japanese person) A non-Japanese person.
   • 1976, Bill Henderson, The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, Pushcart Press, page 207:

     For a while he began to speak Japanese, rather slangy, never having seemed to learn it — karoshi for death from overwork, yakitaori-ya for eatery, and gaijin for clumsy foreigner.

   • 1984, William Gibson, Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 10:

     The sarariman had been Japanese, but the Ninsei crowd was a gaijin crowd.

   • 1992, David Pollack, Reading Against Culture, Cornell Press, page 230:

     And I did not intend to live my life as a gaijin—not merely, like the expatriate, someone by definition permanently out of place but someone unwanted as well.

   • 2004, Troy Anderson, The Way of Go, Simon and Schuster, page 149:

     [...] I was placed in the gaijins' dormitory area up on the third floor.

   • 2006, Alan M. Klein, Growing the Game: The Globalization of Major League Baseball, page 127:

     Oh's pitchers later acknowledged that they were instructed—under penalty of a fine—to throw no strikes to the gaijin.

2. (Hawaii) A white person.

Derived terms

• gaijin card

Translations

(Japan) a non-Japanese person

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 外人 (zh) (wàirén)

• Japanese: 外人 (ja) (がいじん, gaijin)
• Korean: 외인 (oein)
• Polish: gaijin (pl) m, gaijinka f
• Russian: га́йдзин m (gájdzin)

Japanese

Romanization

gaijin

1. Rōmaji transcription of がいじん