Word.ws English Dictionary

rendaku

rendaku noun: in the Japanese language, a phenomenon which governs the voicing of the initial consonant of the non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word. Examples include 時々 (ときどき, tokidoki; “sometimes”), where the second, iterative element -toki becomes -doki and 折り紙 (おりがみ, origami) where the word 紙 (かみ, kami; “paper”) becomes gami.

Noun

rendaku (uncountable)

  1. In the Japanese language, a phenomenon which governs the voicing of the initial consonant of the non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word. Examples include 時々 (ときどき, tokidoki; “sometimes”), where the second, iterative element -toki becomes -doki and 折り紙 (おりがみ, origami) where the word 紙 (かみ, kami; “paper”) becomes gami.
    Synonyms:
    sequential voicing

Synonyms of rendaku

  • sequential voicing

Origin of rendaku

Borrowed from Japanese 連濁 (rendaku, “sequential voicing”).

Questions about rendaku

What does rendaku mean?
Rendaku means in the Japanese language, a phenomenon which governs the voicing of the initial consonant of the non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word. Examples include 時々 (ときどき, tokidoki; “sometimes”), where the second, iterative element -toki becomes -doki and 折り紙 (おりがみ, origami) where the word 紙 (かみ, kami; “paper”) becomes gami.
What part of speech is rendaku?
Rendaku is a noun.

Words near rendaku in the dictionary

  1. rencountering
  2. rencounters
  3. rend
  4. rend one's garments
  5. Renda
  6. rendaku
  7. Rendall
  8. rendang
  9. rendangs
  10. Rendas
  11. Rende

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rendaku (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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