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:
In 2001, Japanese senator Kayano Shigeru – the first of Ainu origin to be elected – visited the Munro clan in Scotland and issued a posthumous thanks for Dr Munro's support of the Ainu people.
From BBC ● Apr. 30, 2025
The skulls were repatriated in a traditional Ainu ceremony at the university.
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
On the face of it, these facts would appear to suggest that the Ainu are descended from Japan’s original inhabitants, and that the Japanese are descended from more recent arrivals.
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
His evidence is that the Ainus, unlike any other tribes in northern Asia: > Wear loincloths in summer.
From Time Magazine Archive
Some strayed out on the bleak mainland, looking for shelter in the huts of the aboriginal Ainus.
From Time Magazine Archive
As between whites, Indians, Eskimos, Ainus, Filipinos, and Singhalese, the average differences Page 198 were small, and much overlapping occurred.
From Human Traits and their Social Significance by Edman, Irwin
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.
