Word.ws English Dictionary

washoku

washoku noun: japanese cuisine, traditional Japanese food.

washoku: japanese cuisine, traditional Japanese food
Image: Yamaguchi Yoshiaki from Japan, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

washoku (uncountable)

  1. Japanese cuisine, traditional Japanese food.
    • She picked up ideas from chatting with local vendors, reading ladies magazines, and watching television cooking shows. She proved an excellent role model, demonstrating that washoku was not a rigid set of rules, but rather a flexible framework in which to collect and consider new ideas.2005, Elizabeth Andoh, Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen, page 67
    • Yoshoku is distinguished from washoku, or “Japanese food,” but their histories are intertwined. That beef (let alone Salisbury steak) is eaten at all in Japan can be traced to an afternoon in 1872 when Emperor Meiji had meat for his lunch and, in doing so, reversed a ban on eating beef that had...2007 May 20, Adam Sachs, “They Eat Horse Sashimi in Tokyo, Don’t They?”, in The New York Times, T Magazine

Examples of washoku in a sentence

  • Yoshoku is distinguished from washoku, or “Japanese food,” but their histories are intertwined.2007 May 20, Adam Sachs, “They Eat Horse Sashimi in Tokyo, Don’t They?”, in The New York Times, T Magazine:
  • Traditional Japanese food, or “washoku”, has been designated an intangible cultural asset, making Japan’s national cuisine only the second after France’s to be so honoured.2013 December 6, Kwan Weng Kin, “UNESCO names Japan's cuisine a cultural asset”, in The Straits Times, Singapore, Top of the News:
  • Akemi Yokoyama, a London-based Japanese chef and washoku teacher, said: “Fundamentally, sushi has to be prepared fresh.2016 January 25, Danielle Demetriou, “No more soggy sushi – Japan to teach UK the way of washoku”, in The Daily Telegraph, page 3:

Origin of washoku

From Japanese 和食 (washoku).

Questions about washoku

What does washoku mean?
Washoku means japanese cuisine, traditional Japanese food.
How do you use washoku in a sentence?
Yoshoku is distinguished from washoku, or “Japanese food,” but their histories are intertwined.
What part of speech is washoku?
Washoku is a noun.

Words near washoku in the dictionary

  1. Washoe County
  2. Washoe process
  3. Washoe Valley
  4. washoff
  5. washoffs
  6. washoku
  7. washomat
  8. washomats
  9. washout
  10. washout plug
  11. washout plugs

Source and license

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