Katakana

//ˌkætəˈkɑːnə// name, noun

name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A Japanese syllabary used when writing words borrowed from foreign languages other than Chinese, specific names of plants and animals and other jargon, onomatopoeia, or to emphasize a word or phrase. Also used to write the Ainu language. uncountable
  2. 2
    A character thereof. countable, uncountable
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    Alternative letter-case form of katakana. alt-of

Synonyms

All synonyms
charactercuneiformdeterminativehieroglyphicideogramlogogram

Example

More examples

"If you go around the Internet, using half-width katakana in various places, eventually you're going to end up pissing off a lot of people."

Etymology

From Japanese 片(かた)仮(か)名(な) (katakana).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.