Asian
/ˈeɪʒən/noun, adjective
Asian is spelled A-S-I-A-N: 5 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 49 times per million words in written English, the 2,072nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, Asian means “A person from or with ancestry in East or Southeast Asia, occasionally South Asia” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of Asian is Asians.
How many letters and syllables are in Asian?
| Letters | 5: A-S-I-A-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 49 times per million words; the 2,072nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is Asian?
Asian appears 49 times per million words in written English, the 2,072nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce Asian?
- US /ˈeɪʒən/
- US /ˈeɪʃən/
- Australia /ˈæɪʒən/
Asian has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: EN-AU_ck1_Asian.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with Asian?
4 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as Asian from its last stressed vowel (/eɪʒən/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of Asian
- Asians plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does Asian mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
AustraliaCanadaUSA person from or with ancestry in East or Southeast Asia, occasionally South Asia.
- 2
UKA person from or with ancestry in South Asia.
- 3
A domestic cat of a breed similar to the Burmese.
adjective
- 1
Of, relating to or from Asia.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Asian in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | Asiatique , asiatique |
| German | Asiate, Asiat, Asiatin , asiatisch |
| Portuguese | asiático, asiática |
| Spanish | asiático, asiática, asiano (desus.) , asiano |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does Asian come from?
From Latin āsiānus. By surface analysis, Asia + -an. The modern North American and Australasian usage, referring to East and Southeast Asians collectively, seems to be a shortened form of "Asian American", a term whose origins activists and academics trace back to 1968 and University of California, Berkeley (UCLA) students Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee, who, inspired by the Black Power Movement and the protests against the Vietnam War, founded the "Asian American Political Alliance" as a way to unite Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino American students on campus.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).