Word.ws English Dictionary

seiza

seiza noun: a traditional formal way of sitting in Japan, by kneeling with the legs folded underneath the thighs and the buttocks resting on the heels, with ankles turned outward.

seiza: a traditional formal way of sitting in Japan, by kneeling with the legs folded underneath the...
Image: Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

seiza (uncountable)

  1. A traditional formal way of sitting in Japan, by kneeling with the legs folded underneath the thighs and the buttocks resting on the heels, with ankles turned outward.
    • She arranged herself with her legs folded beneath her, spine erect, echoing “seiza”, the Japanese sitting position adopted in formal situations.2024 February 10, Helen Barrett, “The underappreciated style of Yoko Ono”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 5

Origin of seiza

From Japanese 正座 (seiza, literally “proper sitting”).

Questions about seiza

What does seiza mean?
Seiza means a traditional formal way of sitting in Japan, by kneeling with the legs folded underneath the thighs and the buttocks resting on the heels, with ankles turned outward.
What part of speech is seiza?
Seiza is a noun.

Words near seiza in the dictionary

  1. seiyuuing
  2. seiyuus
  3. seiyū
  4. seiyūs
  5. seiz'd
  6. seiza
  7. seizable
  8. seize
  9. seize on
  10. seize out
  11. seize the day

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: seiza (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:

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