Word.ws English Dictionary

zori

/ˈzɔːɹi/

zori noun: a Japanese sandal made from rice straw or lacquered wood, worn with a kimono for formal occasions.

zori: a Japanese sandal made from rice straw or lacquered wood, worn with a kimono for formal occasions
Image: Ken FUNAKOSHI from Yokohama, Japan, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

zori (plural zori or zoris)

  1. A Japanese sandal made from rice straw or lacquered wood, worn with a kimono for formal occasions.
    • Zori should be left at the edge of the training area so they can easily be stepped into. In Western dojo, this is sometimes impractical, but zori should at least be put on as soon as possible after leaving the training area.1983 July, Tony Annesi, Dogu: Tools For the Way, Black Belt, page 70
    • […]and they had a machine gun aimed at us, and we stood in the snow for three, four, five hours in our underwear and zoris.1984, Morgan Yamanaka, “Morgan Yamanaka: Tule Lake”, in John Tateishi, editor, And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps, page 117
  2. (especially Southeast US) A sandal, usually of rubber, secured to the foot by two straps mounted between the big toe and its neighbour.
    • He ran back and I watched him go, legs pumping, soles of his zori showing.1980, Stephen King, The Mist, Viking Press
    Synonyms:
    flip-flop

Examples of zori in a sentence

  • She took a while getting her crooked feet into her zori, but finally turned toward Mr.1997, Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha, Vintage, published 1998, page 25:
  • Traditionally, zori are worn to and from the place of practice.2008, Roy Inman, The Judo Handbook, page 14:

Synonyms of zori

Forms of zori

pluralzori
pluralzoris
alternative formzōri
alternative formzouri

Origin of zori

From Japanese 草履 (zōri).

Words that rhyme with zori

9 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about zori

What does zori mean?
Zori means a Japanese sandal made from rice straw or lacquered wood, worn with a kimono for formal occasions.
How do you use zori in a sentence?
She took a while getting her crooked feet into her zori, but finally turned toward Mr.
What part of speech is zori?
Zori is a noun.
How do you pronounce zori?
Zori is pronounced /ˈzɔːɹi/.
What is the plural of zori?
The plural of zori is zori.

Words near zori in the dictionary

  1. zorch
  2. zorched
  3. zorches
  4. zorching
  5. zorgite
  6. zori
  7. Zori-Stalker-Williams syndrome
  8. Zorich
  9. Zoriches
  10. zorid
  11. zorids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: zori (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:

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

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