kintsukuroi · noun — the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold or similar material, highlighting the cracks instead of disguising them.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Why “kintsukuroi” is a great word
The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, thereby highlighting the fractures rather than concealing them. An unadapted borrowing from Japanese 金繕い (kintsukuroi), from 金 (kin, "gold") + 繕い (tsukuroi, "repair, mending"), literally meaning "golden repair." Unlike "restoration," which seeks to erase damage and return an object to a pristine, pre-rupture state, or "kintsugi," which more narrowly emphasizes the technical act of golden joining, kintsukuroi embraces the entire philosophical and spiritual practice of mending. It is the deliberate tracing of a crack’s jagged lightning with a precious metal, the faintly sweet scent of lacquer drying in sunlight, and the resulting vessel that holds its history as an illuminated map of trauma and care—a quiet argument that beauty is not the absence of damage, but the evidence of a thing having been loved back together.
❧ Written by Lexicurio’s AI
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from Japanese 金繕い (kintsukuroi, literally “golden repair”).
noun
- The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold or similar material, highlighting the cracks instead of disguising them.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- kintsugi 92% match — The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold or similar material, highlighting the cracks instead of disguising them. vs kintsukuroi →
- koftgari 50% match — Ornamental work produced by inlaying steel with gold; a variety of damascening common in Indian art. vs kintsukuroi →
- cracklin 49% match — A form of chinaware that is purposely cracked in the kiln by way of ornamentation. vs kintsukuroi →
- kuft 48% match — An Indian form of inlaid work on steel or iron, by damascening and encrusting gold on the metalwork. vs kintsukuroi →
- mending 46% match — The act by which something is mended or repaired. vs kintsukuroi →
- rokusho 46% match — A copper-based solution traditionally used in Japan to induce patination in decorative non-ferrous metals. vs kintsukuroi →
- toreutics 46% match — The art of making relief or intaglio designs, especially by chasing, carving or embossing in metal vs kintsukuroi →
- repairing 46% match — The act by which something is repaired; a mending. vs kintsukuroi →