Word.ws English Dictionary

Yamato

/jɑˈmɑtoʊ/

Yamato proper noun: ancient Japan.

Proper noun

Yamato

  1. (historical) Ancient Japan.
    • The museum curator said that the sword originated from the Yamato period in Japan.
  2. Any of several towns in Japan; see Wikipedia.
  3. The imperial house which formerly ruled Japan from the province of Yamato; by extension, the predominant ethnic group of Japan.
    • In Japanese society, Koreans are viewed as being of a lower rung on the social ladder compared to Yamato people.
  4. A male given name from Japanese.
  5. A surname from Japanese.
    • For quotations using this term, see Citations:Yamato.

Noun

Yamato (plural Yamatos or Yamato)

  1. A member of the Yamato court which formerly ruled Japan.
  2. A member of the ethnic group that comprises over 90% of the population of Japan, native to the islands of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu.
    • When the Guptas were ruling in India and the Tang were ruling in China and the Yamatos were ruling in Japan, no one was ruling in Australia! The people of Australia were nomads.2007, S. Wise Bauer, The Story of the World, History for the Classical Child, →ISBN, page 90
  3. One of a class of battleships used by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second World War.

Forms of Yamato

pluralYamatos
pluralYamato

Origin of Yamato

From Japanese 大和 (Yamato), itself of uncertain derivation, but likely related to 山 (yama, “mountains”). See Proto-Japonic *yamatə.

Questions about Yamato

What does Yamato mean?
Yamato means ancient Japan.
What part of speech is Yamato?
Yamato can be a proper noun or a noun.
How do you pronounce Yamato?
Yamato is pronounced /jɑˈmɑtoʊ/.

Words near Yamato in the dictionary

  1. yamaskite
  2. yamaskites
  3. yamaskitic
  4. Yamassee
  5. Yamassees
  6. Yamato
  7. Yamato-e
  8. Yamatokōriyama
  9. Yamatologist
  10. Yamatologists
  11. Yamatos

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Yamato (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Yamato.wav.

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