Word.ws English Dictionary

taiko

UK/ˈtaɪkəʊ/US/ˈtaɪkoʊ/

taiko noun: a traditional drum, beaten by yobidashi to announce the beginning of a tournament, and at the end of each day.

taiko: a traditional drum, beaten by yobidashi to announce the beginning of a tournament, and at the end...
Image: VulcanSphere, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

taiko (plural taikos)

  1. A traditional drum, beaten by yobidashi to announce the beginning of a tournament, and at the end of each day
  2. A Japanese drum or a performance of several drummers in an ensemble (also called kumi-daiko).

Noun (2)

taiko (plural taikos)

  1. The Chatham Island taiko (Pterodroma magentae).
    • The taiko, a gadfly petrel from the Chatham Islands near to New Zealand, was well known to islanders during the nineteenth century, being used by them as a food resource.2000, Errol Fuller, Extinct Birds, Oxford, page 61

Forms of taiko

pluraltaikos

Origin of taiko

Borrowed from Japanese 太鼓 (たいこ taiko), from 太 (tʰàj, “great”) + 鼓 (kú, “drum”).

Words that rhyme with taiko

Questions about taiko

What does taiko mean?
Taiko means a traditional drum, beaten by yobidashi to announce the beginning of a tournament, and at the end of each day.
What part of speech is taiko?
Taiko is a noun.
How do you pronounce taiko?
Taiko is pronounced /ˈtaɪkəʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of taiko?
The plural of taiko is taikos.

Words near taiko in the dictionary

  1. taikan game
  2. Taikang
  3. taikanite
  4. taikhana
  5. taikhanas
  6. taiko
  7. taikonaut
  8. taikonauts
  9. taikos
  10. tail
  11. tail away

Source and license

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