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
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.
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
The remains of the Ainu people - donated by Scottish anthropologist Dr Neil Gordon - were held in the university's anatomy museum.
From BBC • Apr. 30, 2025
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
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
The only direct way to answer this question is to compare Jomon and Yayoi skeletons and genes with those of modern Japanese and Ainu.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
