Word.ws English Dictionary

ryokan

ryokan noun: a traditional Japanese inn with communal baths and other public areas.

Noun

ryokan (plural ryokans or ryokan)

  1. A traditional Japanese inn with communal baths and other public areas.
    • Mr. Ducasse is pursuing plans for a new hotel one hour from central Tokyo, a cross between a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn, and an auberge, a French country inn.2008 April 27, “Gift to the Mailroom, From the Boardroom”, in New York Times

Forms of ryokan

pluralryokans
pluralryokan

Origin of ryokan

From Japanese 旅館(りょかん) (ryokan), which is from Middle Chinese 旅館 (MC ljoX kwanH, “inn, traveller's lodge”). Compare modern Chinese 旅館／旅馆 (lǚguǎn, “hotel”), from 旅 (lǚ, “travel”) + 館／馆 (guǎn, “lodging-house”).

Questions about ryokan

What does ryokan mean?
Ryokan means a traditional Japanese inn with communal baths and other public areas.
What part of speech is ryokan?
Ryokan is a noun.
What is the plural of ryokan?
The plural of ryokan is ryokans.

Words near ryokan in the dictionary

  1. Rynn
  2. rynt
  3. ryo
  4. ryoboku
  5. Ryobu
  6. ryokan
  7. ryokans
  8. Ryon
  9. Ryons
  10. RYOs
  11. ryot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ryokan (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: “ryokan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ryokan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.