Word.ws English Dictionary

wasei kango

wasei kango noun: words coined in Japanese that are based on Chinese characters.

Noun

wasei kango pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) Words coined in Japanese that are based on Chinese characters.
  2. (plural, plural-only) Japanese coinages using Chinese roots, not originally in use in Chinese-speaking countries nor by Chinese native speakers, but only by speakers of Japanese.

Origin of wasei kango

Borrowed from Japanese 和製漢語 (literally “Japan-made Chinese words”).

Questions about wasei kango

What does wasei kango mean?
Wasei kango means words coined in Japanese that are based on Chinese characters.
What part of speech is wasei kango?
Wasei kango is a noun.

Words near wasei kango in the dictionary

  1. Wasden
  2. Wasdens
  3. wase
  4. Waseca
  5. Waseca County
  6. wasei kango
  7. Wasembo
  8. wases
  9. wash
  10. wash a blackamoor white
  11. wash a negro white

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wasei kango (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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