Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

bishonen

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English

Syllables: bis-hon-en
IPA

13

Scrabble Score

8

Letters

3

Syllables

7

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

An Asian aesthetic of young men whose beauty (and sex appeal) transcends the boundary of gender or sexual orientation, found in manga, etc.

Uncountable

Example Sentences

"Incidentally, I'm not sure you're bucking the trend so much as going along with it; FTM crossplay is getting pretty popular, although you see more women going for bishounen and visual-kei genderfucky stars than anything else."

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese 美少年 (bishōnen びしょうねん), from Middle Chinese 美 (mij^X, “beautiful”) + 少年 (syewᴴ nen, “teenaged boy”) (compare Mandarin 少年 (shàonián)).

Origin

Source language: Japanese

Word Breakdown

Root: 美少年, 美

Usage

Uncountable

Inflected Forms

bishounen (alternative)

Derived Forms

bishie

Frequently Paired Words

girlyman

Questions

What does bishonen mean?: An Asian aesthetic of young men whose beauty (and sex appeal) transcends the boundary of gender or sexual orientation, found in manga, etc.
Where does bishonen come from?: It is traced to Japanese.

How to pronounce bishonen

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