gaijin

See also: gǎijìn

English

Etymology

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Japanese 外人 (gaijin, “foreigner”), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle Chinese 外人 (ngwàj-nyin). Compare (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Mandarin 外人 (wàirén), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old Chinese 外人 (*ŋʷˁat-s ning, “foreigner, outsider” < “non-relative”), from 外 (wài, “outside, outer”) + 人 (rén, “person”).

Pronunciation

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

Noun

gaijin (plural gaijin or gaijins)

1. (Japan) 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.

   • 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.

Translations

(Japan) a non-Japanese person

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 外人 (zh) (wàirén)

• Japanese: 外人 (ja) (がいじん, gaijin)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Korean: 외인 (oein)
• Russian: га́йдзин m (gájdzin)

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Japanese

Romanization

gaijin

1. Rōmaji transcription of がいじん