tsunami (English)

Where does "tsunami" come from?

The English noun 'tsunami' was borrowed directly from Japanese 'tsunami'[1]. The Japanese term is a compound formed by combining 'tsu', meaning 'harbour', with 'nami', meaning 'wave'[1].

Full etymology tree

• tsunami (English), 'A very large and destructive wave, generally caused by a tremendous disturbance in the ocean, such as an undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption; often a series of waves (a wave train).'
  • borrowed 津波 (tsunami) (Japanese), 'a tsunami; a tidal wave'
    • compound 津 (tsu) (Japanese), 'harbor, port, haven'
    • compound 波 (nami) (Japanese)

Ancestors

• tsunami (Japanese)
• 津 (Japanese)
• 波 (Japanese)

Descendants and derived words

• fog tsunami (English)
• ice tsunami (English)
• megatsunami (English)
• meteotsunami (English)
• orphaned tsunami (English)
• poonami (English)
• silver tsunami (English)
• teletsunami (English)
• tsunameter (English)
• tsunamic (English)
• tsunamigenic (English)
• tsunamilike (English)

Sources

1. tsunami (English) - Wiktionary

Updated August 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris