sake
English
Etymology 1
From Middle English sake (“sake, cause”), from Old English sacu (“cause, lawsuit, legal action, complaint, issue, dispute”), from Proto-Germanic *sakō (“affair, thing, charge, accusation, matter”), from Proto-Indo-European *sag- (“to investigate”). Akin to West Frisian saak, Low German sake, Dutch zaak "cause, thing", German Sache "thing, legal cause", Danish sag, Swedish sak, Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌺𐌾𐍉 (sakjo, “dispute, argument”), Old English sōcn (“inquiry, prosecution”), Old English sēcan (“to seek”). More at soke, soken, seek.
Pronunciation
Noun
sake (plural sakes)
- Cause, interest or account.
- For the sake of argument
- Purpose or end; reason.
- For old times' sake
- The benefit or regard of someone or something.
- 1897, Winston Churchill, chapter 1, The Celebrity[1]:
- When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me.
- 2005, Plato, Sophist. Translation by Lesley Brown. 242a-b.
- But it will be for your sake that we'll undertake to refute this thesis, […]
- 1897, Winston Churchill, chapter 1, The Celebrity[1]:
- (obsolete except in phrases) Contention, strife; guilt, sin, accusation or charge.
- And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. — Genesis 3:17
Usage notes
- The word sake is generally used in constructions of the form "for X's sake" or "for the sake of X", where X is a noun. (See the quotations above, for sake of, and for the sake of.)
- Garner's Modern American Usage notes it is common to write an apostrophe rather than apostrophe–ess in this construction when the noun ends in an /s/ or /z/ sound: for appearance' sake, for goodness' sake.
Derived terms
- for Christ’s sake
- for fuck's sake
- for God’s sake
- for heaven’s sake
- for sake of
- for the sake of
- for the sake of it
Translations
cause, interest or account
purpose or end; reason
benefit
contention, strife; guilt
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked
Etymology 2
From Japanese 酒 (さけ, sake), any alcoholic drink.
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
- enPR: säkĕ, IPA: /sɑːkɛ/, X-SAMPA: /sA:kE/
- Rhymes: -ɑːkɛ
- enPR: säkē, IPA: /sɑːki/, X-SAMPA: /sA:ki/
- Rhymes: -ɑːki
Noun
sake (plural sakes)
Synonyms
Translations
Japanese rice wine
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See also
Statistics
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Most common English words before 1923: wouldn't · success · instance · #906: sake · justice · offer · promise
Anagrams
Finnish
Noun
sake
- sake (Japanese rice wine)
Declension
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Declension of sake (type nalle)
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Polish
Etymology
From Japanese 酒 (sake), any alcoholic drink.
Pronunciation
- IPA: [ˈs̪akɛ]
Noun
sake n (indeclinable)
Spanish
Pronunciation
Etymology
From Japanese 酒 (sake), any alcoholic drink.
Noun
sake m (plural sakes)
- sake, Japanese rice wine