Word.ws English Dictionary

Engrish

Engrish proper noun: ungrammatical, unorthographical or nonsensical English of the kind found in East Asia, notably in Japan.

Proper noun

Engrish

  1. (derogatory, sometimes) Ungrammatical, unorthographical or nonsensical English of the kind found in East Asia, notably in Japan.
    • 'Why you not teach Engrish more? I must aspeak^([sic]) Engrish.' The Chelsea's resident mad painter was angry at the way Jeremy had been ignoring him.2003, Bruce L. Russell, Channelling Henry, page 129

Synonyms of Engrish

Origin of Engrish

From the mispronunciation of the word English common to Japanese speakers, who have difficulty distinguishing "L" and "R" sounds. The Japanese transliteration of the word "English", イングリッシュ (Ingurisshu) is often used for teaching purposes. In that word, /ɾ/ (romanised as "r") is pronounced instead of the English /l/.

Questions about Engrish

What does Engrish mean?
Engrish means ungrammatical, unorthographical or nonsensical English of the kind found in East Asia, notably in Japan.
What part of speech is Engrish?
Engrish is a proper noun.

Words near Engrish in the dictionary

  1. engrieve
  2. engrieved
  3. engrieves
  4. engrieving
  5. engrimed
  6. Engrish
  7. engroove
  8. engrooved
  9. engrooves
  10. engrooving
  11. engross

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Engrish (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.

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