Ainu
Americannoun
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a member of an aboriginal population of northernmost Japan.
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the language of the Ainu.
noun
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a member of the aboriginal people of Japan, now mostly intermixed with Mongoloid immigrants whose skin colour is more yellowish
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the language of this people, sometimes tentatively associated with Altaic, still spoken in parts of Hokkaido and elsewhere
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of Ainu
Ainu: man
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He became interested in anthropology and archaeology and moved to the village of Nibutani in Hokkaido to be among the Ainu community.
From BBC ● Apr. 30, 2025
PhD student Nathan Sydenham said Dr Munro had "empathised" with the Ainu people and their struggle to preserve their culture.
From BBC ● Apr. 30, 2025
For example, Hitoshi Watanabe focused on ethnographic data about the Ainu, an Indigenous population in northern Japan and its surrounding areas.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 17, 2023
Although Watanabe documented Ainu women hunting, often with the aid of dogs, he dismissed this finding in his interpretations and placed the focus squarely on men as the primary meat winners.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 17, 2023
In all of these respects, Jomon skulls differ from those of modern Japanese and are most similar to those of modem Ainu, while Yayoi skulls most resemble those of modern Japanese.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
The Bushmen of Australia, the Ainus of Japan and the Dravidians of India have survived from a stock almost as remote.
From Time Magazine Archive
From far-off Hokkaido, lured by an enterprising Tokyo promoter, a tribe of Japan's aboriginal Ainus came to stage the first touring performance of their ancient bear festival.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Hairy Ainus of Japan catch salmon with grizzly bears.
From Time Magazine Archive
His evidence is that the Ainus, unlike any other tribes in northern Asia: > Wear loincloths in summer.
From Time Magazine Archive
Ethically, I am inclined to believe the religion of the Ainus is just as high as was that of the Incas.
From Religion and Lust or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire by Weir, James
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
