-san
See also: Appendix:Variations of "san"
English
Etymology
Borrowed from Japanese さん (san, “Mr, Ms”).
Suffix
-san
- (informal, chiefly Japanophilic slang) Honorific ending used to indicate that a person is Japanese, talking with a Japanese, or treated like a Japanese.
- 2008 December 16, “Barack Obama-san”, in Wall Street Journal[2], archived from the original on 3 May 2015
- 2009 January 31, Beth Wechsler, “Obama-san! President's book of speeches is a huge hit in Japan”, in WalletPop[3], archived from the original on 12 May 2009
Related terms
Translations
Japanese honorific ending
Mr — see Mr
Ms — see Ms
Mrs — see Mrs
Miss — see Miss
Mx — see Mx
Anagrams
Azerbaijani
Suffix
| preceding vowel | |
|---|---|
| a / ı / o / u | e / ə / i̇ / ö / ü |
| -sən | |
-san
- Form of -sən after the vowels A / I / O / U.
Irish
Alternative forms
- -sean (used after palatalized consonants and front vowels)
Etymology
From Old Irish -som (3rd person singular masculine/neuter; 3rd person plural).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /sˠən̪ˠ/, /sˠənˠ/
Suffix
-san
- emphatic suffix of the following persons; used after velarized consonants and back vowels
- third-person singular masculine
- third-person plural
Usage notes
Spelled with a hyphen after -s, otherwise without a hyphen.
- Added to nouns (or adjectives modifying a noun) in the presence of the possessive adjective to emphasize the possessor rather than the thing possessed:
- a mhadrasan ― his dog
- a gcarr deargsan ― their red car
- Added to pronouns (both simple and prepositional) to add emphasis (not to create a reflexive pronoun):
- as-san ― out of him
- siadsan, iadsan ― they, them
- Added to synthetic verb forms to add emphasis to the subject (third-person plural only as there are no third-person singular synthetic forms):
- chualadarsan ― they heard
Derived terms
Irish terms suffixed with -san
See also
| person | after a broad consonant |
after a slender consonant | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| singular | first | -sa | -se | |
| second | ||||
| third | m | -san | -sean | |
| f | -sa | -se | ||
| plural | first | -na | -ne -e (after nn in pronouns) | |
| second | -sa | -se | ||
| third | -san | -sean | ||
Emphatic suffixes are added to nouns modified by a possessive determiner to emphasize the possessor; to verbs, predicate adjectives, and predicate nouns to emphasize the subject; and to inflected prepositions to emphasize the object.
Japanese
Romanization
-san
Scottish Gaelic
Etymology
From Old Irish -som (3rd person singular masculine/neuter; 3rd person plural).
Suffix
-san
Usage notes
- Added to prepositional pronouns to add emphasis (not to create a reflexive pronoun).
- Used in third-person singular masculine (eg aigesan).
- Used in third-person plural (eg orrasan).
- When the last letter of the prepositional pronoun is s, a hyphen is put before the suffix (eg leis-san).
Derived terms
Scottish Gaelic terms suffixed with -san