Word.ws English Dictionary

genkan

[ˈɡɛŋkɑn]

genkan noun: the entryway to a Japanese house, where street shoes are removed and houseshoes put on before entering the house, and houseshoes removed and street shoes put on before leaving the house.

Noun

genkan (plural genkans or genkan)

  1. The entryway to a Japanese house, where street shoes are removed and houseshoes put on before entering the house, and houseshoes removed and street shoes put on before leaving the house.

Forms of genkan

pluralgenkans
pluralgenkan

Origin of genkan

From Japanese 玄関(げんかん) (genkan), from Middle Chinese 玄關 (MC hwen kwaen, literally “front door”).

Questions about genkan

What does genkan mean?
Genkan means the entryway to a Japanese house, where street shoes are removed and houseshoes put on before entering the house, and houseshoes removed and street shoes put on before leaving the house.
What part of speech is genkan?
Genkan is a noun.
How do you pronounce genkan?
Genkan is pronounced [ˈɡɛŋkɑn].
What is the plural of genkan?
The plural of genkan is genkans.

Words near genkan in the dictionary

  1. genizas
  2. genizero
  3. genizot
  4. genizoth
  5. Genk
  6. genkan
  7. genkans
  8. genki
  9. genkinite
  10. genkwa
  11. genkwanin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: genkan (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: “genkan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/genkan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.