Okinawan
Americannoun
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Okinawans
plural
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a person from Okinawa.
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a Ryukyuan language, spoken primarily in the southern Okinawa islands.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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:
Five elderly people suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to the Okinawan prefectural government.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
After clambering up three flights of a dark apartment-building stairwell, I entered Higatei, which celebrates all things awamori, an Okinawan rice-based spirit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2025
In September, Mr. Tamaki took his case against Tokyo’s support for the U.S. troop presence on Okinawan before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, generating a wave of criticism back home.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 29, 2023
The Mediterranean and Okinawan diets have consistently been shown to contribute to better health, including lower rates of obesity and other metabolic diseases.
From Salon ● Aug. 24, 2023
The Okinawan people had always been peaceful and had no history of ever going to war.
From "Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two" by Joseph Bruchac
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And for Okinawans, it is a homeland, a place with its own language, culture and cuisine separate from the rest of Japan.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2025
Opinion polls show that Okinawans under 40, accustomed to U.S. bases, are less fervently opposed to them than their elders.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2024
Tokyo and Washington say the relocation within Okinawa, instead of moving it elsewhere as demanded by many Okinawans, is the only solution.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 4, 2023
It was taken to relieve Okinawans long unhappy with with the American military presence, which is denser and more intrusive than in mainland Japan.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 19, 2023
I supervised twenty-one Okinawans in a machine shop and rose in rank from private first class to corporal.
From "The Boy on the Wooden Box" by Leon Leyson
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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.