Word.ws English Dictionary

nishi

nishi noun: the left-hand (less prestigious) side of the banzuke (番付, “ranking list”).

Noun

nishi (plural nishi)

  1. the left-hand (less prestigious) side of the banzuke (番付, “ranking list”)
  2. a rikishi (力士, “sumo wrestler”) listed on the left side of the banzuke
  3. the western side of the ring

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Nishi

Nishi

  1. A Sino-Tibetan language of the Tani branch.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Nishi

Nishi (plural Nishis)

  1. A surname.

Forms of nishi

Noun
pluralnishi
Proper noun
pluralNishis

Origin of nishi

From Japanese 西 (nishi, “west”), from the way the western or left side of the sumo ranking list is considered less prestigious, by analogy with the setting sun as opposed to the rising sun.

Questions about nishi

What does nishi mean?
Nishi means the left-hand (less prestigious) side of the banzuke (番付, “ranking list”).
What part of speech is nishi?
Nishi can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of nishi?
The plural of nishi is nishi.

Words near nishi in the dictionary

  1. Nishapur
  2. Nishatganj
  3. Nishava
  4. Nishelle
  5. Nishga
  6. nishi
  7. Nishida
  8. Nishidas
  9. Nishikawa
  10. Nishikawas
  11. Nishiki

Source and license

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