kaiju means A fictional giant monster, particularly of the kind found in Japanese science fiction films and other media, like Godzilla, King Kong or Gamera. It carries an Arena rating of 1469, earned across 42 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, kaiju ranks #578 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #1,100 of 17,163 for Funniest Words, #2,577 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #3,080 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words.
kaiju is pronounced /ˈkai.d͡ʒu/.
Why “kaiju” is a great word
KAIJU — [Noun] A fictional giant monster, particularly of the kind found in Japanese science fiction films and other media. From Japanese 怪獣 (kaijū), from Middle Chinese 怪 (kweajᴴ, "strange, fantastic") + 獸 (syuwᴴ, "beast"). Unlike yōkai, which are folkloric spirits of ambiguous scale, or behemoth, a biblical term for sheer immensity, a kaiju is a distinctly twentieth-century colossus born of industrial and atomic anxiety. It is the irradiated silhouette breaching the harbor fog, the tectonic footfall that crumples steel bridges, and the deliberate swipe of a claw through a city's spine—a primal nightmare scaled to the level of a civilization.
Etymology
From Japanese 怪獣 (かいじゅう, kaijū), from Middle Chinese 怪 (kweajᴴ, “strange, fantastic”) + 獸 (syuwᴴ, “beast”) (compare Mandarin 怪獸 /怪兽 (guàishòu)).
noun
- A fictional giant monster, particularly of the kind found in Japanese science fiction films and other media, like Godzilla, King Kong or Gamera.e.g.“The resurrections of Mothra, the giant butterfly in Japanese kaiju movies, are treated as colourful religious events, glitter falling upon fat children as the fluffy-faced behemoth dries its wings.” — 2015, Steve Aylett, Heart of the Original, Unbound, page 117:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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