Word.ws English Dictionary

yokai

yokai noun: any of various supernatural monsters, sometimes shapeshifters, in Japanese folklore.

yokai: any of various supernatural monsters, sometimes shapeshifters, in Japanese folklore
Image: Brigham Young University, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

yokai (plural yokai or yokais)

  1. (Japanese) Any of various supernatural monsters, sometimes shapeshifters, in Japanese folklore.
    • Earl didn’t know all the details about what that type of yokais’ powers were, her mother kept the family secrets close to the vest, and he knew even less about which of those powers had gotten passed onto her half-human offspring.2021, Larry Correia, chapter 6, in Monster Hunter Bloodlines (Monster Hunters International; 9), Riverdale, N.Y.: Baen Books, →ISBN

Forms of yokai

pluralyokai
pluralyokais
alternative formyōkai
alternative formyoukai

Origin of yokai

Borrowed from Japanese 妖怪 (yōkai, “ghost, phantom, monster”), from Middle Chinese 妖怪 ('jew kweajᴴ) with the similar meaning.

Questions about yokai

What does yokai mean?
Yokai means any of various supernatural monsters, sometimes shapeshifters, in Japanese folklore.
What part of speech is yokai?
Yokai is a noun.
What is the plural of yokai?
The plural of yokai is yokai.

Words near yokai in the dictionary

  1. yok
  2. Yoka poxvirus
  3. yoka star turban
  4. yoka star turbans
  5. yokable
  6. yokai
  7. yokais
  8. yokan
  9. yoke
  10. yoke elm
  11. yoke elms

Source and license

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