tokonoma
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of tokonoma
1895–1900; < Japanese, equivalent to toko (raised) floor + -no grammatical particle + ma room
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.
Set in a garden among plum and kiwi trees, the cottage has traditional tatami mats, shoji-paper and fusuma sliding doors, chunky wooden cabinets and tokonoma alcoves.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 18, 2023
Kano sat as she had left him, motionless, now, as the white jade vase within the tokonoma.
From The Dragon Painter by Fenollosa, Mary McNeil
On the tokonoma, in a rare bronze of Sung workmanship, lay a single morning-glory—the queen of the whole garden!
From The Book of Tea by Okakura, Kakuzo
The Emperor, of course, never comes, and so the tokonoma is no more than a name.
From Peeps at Many Lands: Japan by Finnemore, John
It may, in extreme cases, be much less; for a certain kind of Japanese garden can be contrived small enough to put in a tokonoma.
From Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan Second Series by Hearn, Lafcadio
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.
