Definitions

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

  • noun Straw matting used as a floor covering especially in a Japanese house.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A floor-mat about two inches thick, made of rice-straw bound together and covered on the upper surface with matting. The edges are usually bound with cloth.
  • noun A Japanese measure of surface, that of a mat 6 shaku in length by 3 shaku in width, or nearly 6 feet by 3 feet.

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

  • noun straw matting, in a standard size, used as a floor covering in Japanese houses

Etymologies

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

[Japanese.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Japanese  (たたみ, tatami).

Support

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

Examples

  • Japan, of course, uses that oh-so-traditional unit of measurement known as the tatami mat, and the size of a room is always expressed in how many tatami would fit inside, even if it's a traditional Western room with wooden flooring.

    Anime Nano! 2009

  • In one cell, a gray plastic tarp protects the straw "tatami" mat floor from bed-wetting.

    FOXNews.com 2010

  • In one cell, a gray plastic tarp protects the straw "tatami" mat floor from bed-wetting.

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2010

  • In one cell, a gray plastic tarp protects the straw "tatami" mat floor from bed-wetting.

    Kansas City Star: Front Page 2010

  • In one cell, a gray plastic tarp protects the straw "tatami" mat floor from bed-wetting.

    Kansas City Star: Front Page 2010

  • In one cell, a gray plastic tarp protects the straw "tatami" mat floor from bed-wetting.

    StarTribune.com rss feed 2010

  • There are a lot of Chinese staples that have been rehabilitated, as well as stylish upgrades of items owned by any older Chinese lady, such as tatami back cushions.

    NYT > Travel 2009

  • With Ozu, we have the consistent tropes of the excessively low-angle "tatami" shot, the increasing exclusion of camera movement, the crossing-the-line eye-line mismatching that forms the basis of an editing system, and the formalist abstraction of the "pillow" shots of clothes lines, chimneys, and so forth.

    GreenCine Daily 2009

  • With Ozu, we have the consistent tropes of the excessively low-angle "tatami" shot, the increasing exclusion of camera movement, the crossing-the-line eye-line mismatching that forms the basis of an editing system, and the formalist abstraction of the "pillow" shots of clothes lines, chimneys, and so forth.

    GreenCine Daily 2009

  • Students in the class can learn from real geisha how to put on kimono and make-up as well as how to dance on '' tatami '' mats at the Japanese-style inn Tokaikan during a single-day course for 12,800 yen or a two-day course for 18,800 yen.

    Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion 2009

Comments

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