Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A relatively angular kana used especially to write foreign words, onomatopoetic words, and the names of plants and animals in Japanese.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of the two styles of writing the syllabary of 48 letters in use among the Japanese, the other being hiragana.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable A Japanese syllabary used when writing words borrowed from foreign languages other than Chinese, specific names of plants and animals and other jargon, or to emphasize a word or phrase.
  • noun A letter thereof

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Japanese : kata, one + kana, kana; see kana.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Japanese 片仮名 (katakana).

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word katakana.

Examples

  • But katakana is mostly limited to sounds in the Japanese language, which is notoriously limited.

    There must be something in the water « Gin&Comment 2008

  • After several events, I try to write it down in katakana, the phonetic syllables used for rendering foreign words.

    There must be something in the water « Gin&Comment 2008

  • Although the western word “Terrorist” appeared in katakana in his poem, he was an apolitical poet, who was isolated, anti-social and prone to unhealthy dose of introspection and self-loathing.

    Miyazawa Kenji – Ishikawa Takuboku – Two Japanese poets from Iwate 2005

  • Although the western word “Terrorist” appeared in katakana in his poem, he was an apolitical poet, who was isolated, anti-social and prone to unhealthy dose of introspection and self-loathing.

    Vitro Nasu » 2005 » August 2005

  • Jackson seems intrigued by Japanese culture, as he had a Japanese reporter pen his name for him in katakana, or

    USATODAY.com - ALCS notebook: Spike Lee a Yankees fan, too 2001

  • The two characters left of her says "BoA" in Japanese katakana, "ボア" … But of course, you're probably right PopSeoul, Americans who are not aware of the Japanese language will probably see that and just see it as some Asian writing (most likely Chinese).

    WordPress.com News 2008

  • One of the VMUs has the godzilla mini game on it and works fine, the other one has an error message saying “There is no game” in katakana.

    Godzilla Mini | SciFi, Fantasy & Horror Collectibles 2009

  • He goes on to explain (or claim) that this was one of his first ideas for writing about cold-reading (a term the katakana version of which, incidentally, Ishii appears to have trademarked), rejected by the publisher for being too “provocative,” but that he has decided to revive the idea in the hopes that it will help shock Japan out of its ongoing susceptibility to fraudulent spiritualists and ore ore scams.

    Néojaponisme » Blog Archive » Confessions of a pseudo-pseudo-psychic 2009

  • What's funny is that it's written in katakana, which is a script that even people who can't read Japanese well usually learn quite decently because it is usually used for foreign non-Japanese words, and people learn at least how to write their names with it.

    Manse mj 2007

  • They don't have the main character in the cast, and Zambot has been written with a "sa" in katakana, which is wrong...

    Muteki Kyojin Zambot 3 tenshi_a 2007

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.