Word.ws English Dictionary

kaizen

/ˈkaɪˌzən/

kaizen noun: a Japanese business practice of continuous improvement in performance and productivity.

Noun

kaizen (countable and uncountable, plural kaizens)

  1. A Japanese business practice of continuous improvement in performance and productivity.
  2. (broadly) Continuous improvement generally.
    • This is a big mistake, because Japanese railways were largely built using British equipment and technology. But what they have done since is ruthlessly improve and refine it, using Kaizen principles.2023 June 28, Sir Michael Holden, “Comment: 'There will be more Nunehams': We need some serious Kaizen... and we need it now”, in RAIL, number 986, page 3

Verb

kaizen (third-person singular simple present kaizens, present participle kaizening, simple past and past participle kaizened)

  1. (transitive) To apply continuous improvement to (a task, or the worker who performs it).

kaizen meaning in Tamil and Malay

kaizen in Tamil

கெய்சென், தொடர் மேம்பாடு

kaizen in Malay

Japanese business practice of continuous improvement
kaizen

Forms of kaizen

Noun
pluralkaizens
Verb
third-person singular presentkaizens
present participlekaizening
past participlekaizened
pastkaizened

Origin of kaizen

From Japanese 改善 (kaizen かいぜん), from Middle Chinese 改善 (kój-dʒjén) (compare Mandarin gǎishàn 改善), from Old Chinese 改善 (*qˁəʔ-ɡenʔ "to correct errors"), from 改 ("to change") + 善 ("good"). Introduced to English in 1959 by Boyé Lafayette De Mente in his book Japanese Etiquette and Ethics in Business.

Words that rhyme with kaizen

Questions about kaizen

What does kaizen mean?
Kaizen means a Japanese business practice of continuous improvement in performance and productivity.
What is kaizen in Tamil?
Kaizen in Tamil is கெய்சென், தொடர் மேம்பாடு. See Kaizen meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is kaizen?
Kaizen can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce kaizen?
Kaizen is pronounced /ˈkaɪˌzən/.
What is the plural of kaizen?
The plural of kaizen is kaizens.

Words near kaizen in the dictionary

  1. Kaixian
  2. Kaixiangong
  3. Kaiya
  4. Kaiyang
  5. Kaiyuan
  6. kaizen
  7. kaizened
  8. kaizening
  9. kaizens
  10. Kaizhou
  11. kaizo

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kaizen (page history and authors); kaizen (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: “kaizen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kaizen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.