Word.ws English Dictionary

ateji

ateji noun: the use of kanji chosen primarily for their phonetic (narrow sense) or semantic (broad sense) value to represent foreign or native Japanese words, or the kanji so used.

Noun

ateji (countable and uncountable, plural ateji)

  1. The use of kanji chosen primarily for their phonetic (narrow sense) or semantic (broad sense) value to represent foreign or native Japanese words, or the kanji so used.

Forms of ateji

pluralateji

Origin of ateji

Borrowed from Japanese 当(あ)て字(じ) (ateji) or 宛字(あてじ) (ateji).

Questions about ateji

What does ateji mean?
Ateji means the use of kanji chosen primarily for their phonetic (narrow sense) or semantic (broad sense) value to represent foreign or native Japanese words, or the kanji so used.
What part of speech is ateji?
Ateji is a noun.
What is the plural of ateji?
The plural of ateji is ateji.

Words near ateji in the dictionary

  1. atechnic
  2. ated
  3. atef
  4. atefs
  5. ategmic
  6. ateji
  7. Ateker
  8. ateknia
  9. atel-
  10. atelectases
  11. atelectasis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ateji (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “ateji.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ateji. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.