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weeaboo

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

7 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "weeaboo", 7-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "weeaboo" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "weeaboo" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

weeaboo is aEnglishnoun. It means: A non-Japanese person, stereotypically an unsociable white male, who is overly infatuated with Japanese culture; a loser Japanophile. Pronounced /ˈwiː.ə.buː/.

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Key facts for weeaboo
PropertyValue
Headwordweeaboo
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ˈwiː.ə.buː/
Letters7
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

weeaboo is not present in the top-100,000 ranked English corpus, typical for technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary.

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for weeaboo is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈwiː.ə.buː/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No misspelling variants are generated for weeaboo in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: A nonce word in "Weeaboo", a 2005 Perry Bible Fellowship comic by Nicholas Gurewitch, according to whom the word originated from a dream his sister had. It was used later that year as a wordfilter replacement for the abusive term wapanese on the message boa… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is weeaboo, spelled W-E-E-A-B-O-O, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A non-Japanese person, stereotypically an unsociable white male, who is overly infatuated with Japanese culture; a loser Japanophile.
  2. 2
    A person who is obsessively interested in anime, manga or Japanese culture more generally.

Etymology

A nonce word in "Weeaboo", a 2005 Perry Bible Fellowship comic by Nicholas Gurewitch, according to whom the word originated from a dream his sister had. It was used later that year as a wordfilter replacement for the abusive term wapanese on the message board 4chan, from which its current sense derived and spread.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "weeaboo"?
"weeaboo" is spelled W-E-E-A-B-O-O. The IPA pronunciation is /ˈwiː.ə.buː/.
What does "weeaboo" mean?
As a noun, "weeaboo" means: A non-Japanese person, stereotypically an unsociable white male, who is overly infatuated with Japanese culture; a loser Japanophile.
How do you pronounce "weeaboo"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "weeaboo" is /ˈwiː.ə.buː/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "weeaboo"?
A nonce word in "Weeaboo", a 2005 Perry Bible Fellowship comic by Nicholas Gurewitch, according to whom the word originated from a dream his sister had. It was used later that year as a wordfilter replacement for the abusive term wapanese on the m... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter W in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.