What does "onigiri" mean?

A Japanese food made by putting ingredients into white rice, wrapping the outside with laver, and shaping it into a triangle.

What is a synonym for "onigiri"?

Common synonyms include: japanese rice ball, musubi, omusubi, omusubi, rice ball, rice ball.

Pronounced //ˌoʊ.nɪˈɡɪɹ.i//.

//ˌoʊ.nɪˈɡɪɹ.i// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A Japanese food made by putting ingredients into white rice, wrapping the outside with laver, and shaping it into a triangle.
"The sprawling multipage menu offers cleanly executed dishes meant to accompany the sake, including standards like boiled edamame, and the filling rice balls called onigiri that you would expect at any izakaya, or Japanese pub."

"How do you make a triangle-shaped onigiri? No matter how many times I try I can only make round onigiri."

Borrowed from Japanese お握り (onigiri).

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