神風

Japanese

Etymology

神 kami “god, divine” + 風 kaze “wind”

Noun

神風 (hiragana かみかぜ, romaji kamikaze)

1. Literally “divine wind”, a name given to a typhoon that saved Japan from a Mongol invasion in the 13th century.

Derived terms

• 神風特別攻撃隊 (shinpū tokubetsu kōgeki tai)
• 神風タクシー (kamikaze takushii)

Usage notes

• 神風 is also the ultimate source of the English word kamikaze, by a circuitous route. The characters appear in 神風特別攻撃隊, “神風 special attack unit”, the name of one kamikaze unit surely named after the typhoon but given the Sino-Japanese reading “shinpū”. However “shinpū” is not a word in its own right. The Japanese use the term “special attack unit” written in the abbreviated form 特攻隊 (tokkōtai) when referring to the WWII suicide pilots.

See also

• 切腹 (seppuku)
• 特攻隊 (tokkōtai)
• 腹切 (hara-kiri)
• Discussion of this term on Languagehat, a language blog