haiku

Etymology

It is borrowed from Japanese 俳句 (haiku).^[2][3][4][5] According to Etymonline, it was telescoped in the late 19th century, supposedly by the poet Shiki, from a phrase meaning "comic verse", joining the Japanese word haikai and 句 (ku, “verse, phrase”);^[5] the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford likewise call it a contraction of that phrase, light or unserious verse.^[6][7] The American Heritage Dictionary takes both elements from Middle Chinese, the first meaning "amusement" and the second "phrase, sentence".^[8] Dictionary.com relates it to hokku.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Japanese verse form, usually of 17 syllables and at first of a jesting character: 1876, in Johnson's New Universal Cyclopaedia.^[2] Etymonline, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster date the English word to 1902,^[5][4][3] and Barnhart notes the earlier form haikai (1899).^[4]

Semantic evolution

The verse form itself developed in Japan in the mid-16th century, according to the OED and Etymonline.^[2][5] Merriam-Webster describes the haiku as a late 19th-century development of the hokku: an unrhymed poem of three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables, referring in some way to a season of the year.^[3] The American Heritage Dictionary notes that the Japanese form counts morae, while imitations in other languages usually count syllables.^[8] Etymonline quotes Miller Williams's Patterns of Poetry (1986) on the traditional mention of a season, which sets the poem's tone.^[5] The OED's sense also covers English imitations of the form.^[2][7]

Timeline

• 1876 – a Japanese verse form of about 17 syllables.^[2] Etymonline, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster date the word to 1902.^[5][4][3]
• 1899 – the related form haikai in English.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A Japanese lyric poem of three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five morae, traditionally evoking nature or a season of the year.^[8][3]
2. A poem in another language modelled on this form, usually counting syllables instead of morae.^[8][3][7]
3. The haiku as a verse form.^[8][10]

Related words

• haikai
• hokku

Usage notes

The plural is usually haiku, also haikus.^[8][3] Collins gives hokku as another name for the form.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins