desu (English)

Where does "desu" come from?

The English particle 'desu' was borrowed directly from Japanese 'desu', which functions as the polite form of the Japanese copula meaning 'be'[1]. Its spread into English internet culture is attributed to memes originating on 4chan involving the Rozen Maiden character Suiseiseki, who characteristically ends every sentence with the particle[1]. Within Japanese, the copula 'desu' is widely thought to be a contracted version of the polite phrase 'de arimasu', though several other historical compound possibilities have also been proposed[2].

Open questions

The copula 'desu' is thought to be a contracted version of 'de arimasu', but other historical possibilities include contractions with 'gozaimasu', 'suru', 'owasu', or 'sōrō'. [2]

Full etymology tree

desu (English), 'Used at the end of a sentence as an assertive particle.'
- borrowed です (desu) (Japanese), 'polite form of だ (da), after uninflecting parts of speech: to be'
  - derived であります (de arimasu) (Japanese), 'polite form of である (de aru)'
    - compound で (de) (Japanese), 'The hiragana syllable で (de). Its equivalent in katakana is デ (de).'
    - compound あります (arimasu) (Japanese), 'polite form of ある (aru)'
      - compound あり (ari) (Japanese)
        derived ある (aru) (Old Japanese)
        inherited *ari (Proto-Japonic), 'ant'
      - compound ます (masu) (Japanese), 'expresses politeness toward and distance from the listener: vaguely similar to the social context indicated by the usted verb conjugation in Spanish, the vous conjugation in French, or the Sie conjugation in German'

Ancestors

です (Japanese)

Sources

Updated August 2026

More words starting with D

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