Kawaii

//kəˈwaɪ.i// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The quality of being kawaii; cuteness. uncountable

    "However, Wong's connection to kawaii culture, which I have attempted to establish here, suggests a different reading of his films. As Larissa Hjorth has argued, “The kawaii is not about post-humanism but rather a clear demonstration of neo-humanist types” (144). In this sense, East Asian kawaii culture, like Wong's films, should be understood as desperate attempts to create a dreamlike humanist space within the harsh reality of globalized capitalism."

  2. 2
    The style or culture of cuteness uncountable

    "Her room is full of kawaii, with pastel plushies, anime posters, and cute stationery."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Cute, adorable.

    "She bought a kawaii keychain shaped like a kitten."

Synonyms

All synonyms
desukawaiiness

Example

More examples

"As we no longer alter the spellings of loanwords to match typical English spelling conventions, this leads to many words with unusual spellings, like "guanxi", "qarin", "kawaii" and "burqa"."

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese 可愛(かわい)い (kawaii, “lovable; adorable; cute”).

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