# Asian

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈeɪʒən/ · frequency rank #2,059

## Definitions
1. A person from the continent of Asia, or a descendant thereof - especially:
2. A person from the continent of Asia, or a descendant thereof - especially:
3. A domestic cat of a breed similar to the Burmese.

## Etymology
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. It replaced the term "Mongoloid", but still continued the racial grouping of "Mongoloid".
The usage in Britain and some of its former colonies such as South Africa, Kenya and Uganda, stems from South Asians historically forming the bulk of immigrants from the continent of Asia to these places.
In the rest of the Anglosphere, the word "Asian" is sometimes, albeit less frequently, used to refer to South Asians and Central Asians, but rarely (if ever) to Near Easterners.

## Easily confused with
- **ASIC** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-asic)
- **Asif** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-asif)
- **Asta** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-asta)
- **aside** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-aside)
- **Aston** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-aston)
- **Assad** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-assad)
- **aspen** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-aspen)
- **Assam** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-assam)
- **assay** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-assay)
- **axial** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-axial)
- **avian** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-avian)
- **Askin** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-askin)
- **Aslan** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-aslan)
- **assign** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-assign)
- **Astana** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asian-vs-astana)
- **ain** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ain-vs-asian)
- **ASA** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asa-vs-asian)
- **Asi** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asi-vs-asian)
- **Asia** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/asia-vs-asian)
- **Alan** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/alan-vs-asian)

## Common misspellings (6)
`aisan`, `asain`, `asiann`, `asina`, `assian`, `saian`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/asian