manju
manju noun: a traditional Japanese confection; most have an outside made from flour, rice powder, kudzu, and buckwheat, and a filling of red bean paste, usually made from boiled azuki beans and sugar; in Hawaii, Okinawan ones are made with a filling of purple sweet potato, butter, milk, sugar, and salt, but the most common filling is bean paste.
Noun
manju (plural manju or manjus)
- A traditional Japanese confection; most have an outside made from flour, rice powder, kudzu, and buckwheat, and a filling of red bean paste, usually made from boiled azuki beans and sugar; in Hawaii, Okinawan ones are made with a filling of purple sweet potato, butter, milk, sugar, and salt, but the most common filling is bean paste.
- Then, replying to Gyowo’s interrogation, he announced that as he had as many manju cakes as he wished for, and as he was no more use in this world, he would not mind dying.1930, Yosoburo Takekoshi, The Economic Aspects of the History of the Civilization of Japan, volume III, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, page 76
- My mother opened a large bag and took out four bottles of beer, some manjus and iced cakes.1973, Ryuji Nagatsuka, translated by Nina Rootes, “Part One”, in I Was a Kamikaze, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., published 1974, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 57
Proper noun capitalized: Manju
Manju
- A female given name from Sanskrit.
Examples of manju in a sentence
- Smiling, she pours a cup each for herself and Shiro, goes back to the kitchen, and returns with a plate of manju.1995, Kyoko Mori, The Dream of Water: A Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, page 193:
- Madara assumes the form of a chubby, mochi-like cat named Nyanko-sensei who loves to drink sake and eat manju and ebi furai—and pretty much anything else.2020, Diana Ault, Cook Anime: Eat Like Your Favorite Character—From Bento to Yakisoba, New York, N.Y.: Tiller Press, Simon & Schuster...
- Angel hummed, their gaze shifting from him to the plate of manju sitting on the bench.2020, Naomi Aoki, Deadly Game, →ISBN:
- They say in Slam Dunk that you need to have self-control to grab rebounds, and the girls exhibited a lack of that: they bought up over half of the manju I made.2023, Shoji Goji, translated by Eric Margolis, Loner Life in Another World, volume 6, Seven Seas Entertainment, →ISBN:
Forms of manju
| plural | manju |
|---|---|
| plural | manjus |
| alternative form | manjū |
Origin of manju
From Japanese 饅頭 (manjū), from Chinese 饅頭 /馒头 (mántou). Doublet of mandu, manti, and mantou.
From Sanskrit मञ्जु (mañju, “beautiful, lovely, charming, pleasant, sweet”).
Questions about manju
- What does manju mean?
- Manju means a traditional Japanese confection; most have an outside made from flour, rice powder, kudzu, and buckwheat, and a filling of red bean paste, usually made from boiled azuki beans and sugar; in Hawaii, Okinawan ones are made with a filling of purple sweet potato, butter, milk, sugar, and salt, but the most common filling is bean paste.
- How do you use manju in a sentence?
- Smiling, she pours a cup each for herself and Shiro, goes back to the kitchen, and returns with a plate of manju.
- What part of speech is manju?
- Manju can be a noun or a proper noun.
- What is the plural of manju?
- The plural of manju is manju.
Words near manju in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: manju (page history and authors); Manju (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: “manju.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/manju. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.