nyao

From the Japanese onomatopoeia にゃお (nyao).

nyao

1. (anime and manga fandom) The cry of a cat; meow, miaow.

   Synonyms: nya, nyaa, nyan

   • 1994 December 13, Mark Maestas, “Dream Tournament 3: Round 1 Results, Part 2”, in rec.games.video.arcade‎^[1] (Usenet):

     Scorpion's body dropped to the ground as Felicia turned back into a cat. With a barely audible "nyao," she then began to lick and clean herself off.

   • 1997 August 16, Terra, “[XOver] [FanFic] Star98 - Episode 2: The Lost Senshi”, in rec.arts.anime.fandom‎^[2] (Usenet):

     Luna looked at me with a very skeptical face, "Nyao?!"
     It must have been a cat's way of saying, 'You've got to be kidding!'

   • 2001 March 25, Aylakitty [username], “Re: If AFD was a family...”, in alt.fan.digimon‎^[3] (Usenet):

     I'd Be The Family Kitty Cat! Nyao! Heehee! :::lies down on a rug and purrs:::

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:nyao.

• Ayon, Yano, onya, yano

Ultimately from Proto-North Halmahera (likely of the form *ɲa(w)ok); compare Galela nawo, Tabaru naoko, Sahu nyao'o.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɲa.o/

nyao (Jawi ڽاو)

1. a fish

• Frederik Sigismund Alexander de Clercq (1890) Bijdragen tot de kennis der Residentie Ternate, E.J. Brill
• Rika Hayami-Allen (2001) A descriptive study of the language of Ternate, the northern Moluccas, Indonesia, University of Pittsburgh