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Forms
Definitions
Frequency
Etymology

asian

//ˈeɪʒən//

Noun

A word that identifies a person, place, thing, or idea.

Adjective

A word that describes or modifies a noun or pronoun.

Note for asian

Mnemonics, your own examples, reminders…

Forms

Plural: asians

Definitions

Noun
A word that identifies a person, place, thing, or idea.

1.A person from the continent of Asia, or a descendant thereof - especially:
- If radio and television programmes are anything to go by, Asians in Britain get up early on a Sunday.
- Were there Taliban beheading people? I didn't tell my parents, but I flinched if an Asian-looking man came close.
2.A domestic cat of a breed similar to the Burmese.

Adjective
A word that describes or modifies a noun or pronoun.

1.Of, relating to or from Asia.
- There are white, black, Asian and Chinese Britons, just as there are any number of different sorts of Americans.

Frequency

Overall

Uncommon· #2794

By learning goal

Everyday conversation: Rare
General reading & writing: Uncommon
Academic: Rare
Literature: Rare

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.

Data sources:

Wiktionary (Wiktextract) (CC BY-SA)
Princeton WordNet (WordNet License)
Tatoeba (CC BY)
COCA / wordfrequency.info (derived frequency bands only)

Dataset published under CC BY-SA.

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