Word.ws English Dictionary

kyogen

kyogen noun: a form of traditional Japanese theatre, once performed alongside noh as a comic intermission.

Noun

kyogen (countable and uncountable, plural kyogen or kyogens)

  1. (uncountable) A form of traditional Japanese theatre, once performed alongside noh as a comic intermission.
  2. (countable) A work in this genre.
    • Many kyogen include komai, small comic dances and songs which enhance the sense of fun or absurdity of a play.2016, Colleen Lanki, “Japan”, in Siyuan Liu, editor, Routledge Handbook of Asian Theatre (Routledge Handbooks), Abingdon, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, part II (Dimensions of...

Forms of kyogen

pluralkyogen
pluralkyogens
alternative formkyōgen

Origin of kyogen

Borrowed from Japanese 狂言 (kyōgen), from Middle Chinese 狂言 (MC gjwang ngjon, “crazed ramblings”)), from 狂 (MC gjwang, “crazy, mad”) + 言 (MC ngjon, “speech”).

Questions about kyogen

What does kyogen mean?
Kyogen means a form of traditional Japanese theatre, once performed alongside noh as a comic intermission.
What part of speech is kyogen?
Kyogen is a noun.
What is the plural of kyogen?
The plural of kyogen is kyogen.

Words near kyogen in the dictionary

  1. kynurenine
  2. kynurenines
  3. kynurenins
  4. kyodai
  5. Kyoga
  6. kyogen
  7. kyogens
  8. Kyogle
  9. kyohwaso
  10. Kyoko
  11. kyokushin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kyogen (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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