Word
sensei
Phoneticssen·sei
/ˈsɛnˌseɪ/
Definition
n. a teacher or expert, especially in Japanese martial arts like karate. You use this title to show respect to someone who is teaching you a skill.
n. a title of respect for a teacher, instructor, or master, particularly within the context of Japanese martial arts or traditional arts. Often used as a direct address or a suffix to a surname.
Examples
“The students bowed to their sensei before the lesson started.”
“After years of practice, he finally earned the respect of his sensei and was awarded his black belt.”
Examples
simple
“The students bowed to their sensei before the lesson started.”
contextual
“After years of practice, he finally earned the respect of his sensei and was awarded his black belt.”
Usage
Often used as a title before a surname or as a standalone form of address. In English contexts, it is rarely pluralized with a Japanese suffix, typically following standard English plural rules.
Real-World Examples
“The adversaries, Junichi Gomita and Yoshinori Okazaki, were teachers (or sensei) at Aikido Tanabe Dōjō in Tanabe, the town in the Japanese prefecture of Wakayama where aikido's founder Morihei Ueshiba was born in 1883.” “Shinjo sensei – solid as a rock in a crisp white uniform, black belt looped casually at the waist – has already smacked my wrists, tapped my hips, laughed at my “dancing” and repositioned every body part.” “Every karate dojo assumes the personality of its sensei, or teacher.” Etymology
From Japanese 先生 (sensei, "teacher; elder"), itself borrowed from Middle Chinese 先生 (sen sraeng, "master, elder"), a compound of 先 (sen, "earlier, first") and 生 (sraeng, "born"). The same characters survive in modern Mandarin as 先生 (xiānshēng), now largely reduced to "Mr." — a deflation of status that the Japanese form escaped.
The word has a doublet in sinseh, from Hokkien 先生 (sin-seⁿ), the southern Min pronunciation of the same characters. Both forms entered English as borrowings, preserving distinctions of register and geography that the original Chinese had already carried for centuries.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Domains
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/sensei