Word.ws English Dictionary

pachinko

Syllables: pa·chin·ko/pəˈt͡ʃɪŋkəʊ/

pachinko noun: a mechanical ball-dropping game similar to pinball, popular in Japan.

pachinko: a mechanical ball-dropping game similar to pinball, popular in Japan
Image: Jbeaver1, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

pachinko (countable and uncountable, plural pachinkos)

  1. A mechanical ball-dropping game similar to pinball, popular in Japan.
    • Two teen-age boys, after selling their personal belongings to play pachinko, sold their blood to "gamble.”1952 October 12, Ray Falk, “Pinball Panic Over Japan: ‘Pachinko’ is a zany game; its havoc is nation-wide”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived...
    • The rain kept up, falling along Harajuku, beading on her plastic jacket, the children of Tokyo trooping past the famous boutiques in white loafers and clingwrap capes, until she'd stood with him in the midnight clatter of a pachinko parlor and held his hand like a child.1984, William Gibson, Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 8

Verb

pachinko (third-person singular simple present pachinkos, present participle pachinkoing, simple past and past participle pachinkoed)

  1. (intransitive) To tumble down through a series of obstacles.
    • She drizzled them in slowly and listened to the susurration of the bolts pachinkoing their way through the refrigerators and fax machines, on their way to some illegal dump.2016, Alex Livingston, Glitch Rain

pachinko meaning in Hindi and Marathi

pachinko in Hindi

game
पाचिंको pāciṅko

pachinko in Marathi

game
पाचिन्को pācinko

Forms of pachinko

Noun
pluralpachinkos
alternative formpachinco
Verb
third-person singular presentpachinkos
present participlepachinkoing
past participlepachinkoed
pastpachinkoed

Origin of pachinko

Borrowed from Japanese パチンコ (pachinko), from ぱちん (pachin, onomatopoeic sound of the machines) + こ (ko, diminutive). Compare etymology of gacha, from Japanese ガシャポン.

Words formed from pachinko

Words that rhyme with pachinko

Questions about pachinko

What does pachinko mean?
Pachinko means a mechanical ball-dropping game similar to pinball, popular in Japan.
What is pachinko in Hindi?
Pachinko in Hindi is पाचिंको (pāciṅko). See Pachinko meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is pachinko?
Pachinko can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce pachinko?
Pachinko is pronounced /pəˈt͡ʃɪŋkəʊ/.
What is the plural of pachinko?
The plural of pachinko is pachinkos.

Words near pachinko in the dictionary

  1. pachigyria
  2. pachimetry
  3. Pachin
  4. pachinco
  5. pachincos
  6. pachinko
  7. pachinko allocation
  8. pachinkoed
  9. pachinkoing
  10. pachinkos
  11. pachisi

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pachinko (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pachinko.wav.

Cite this entry: “pachinko.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pachinko. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.