overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

joss.

A Chinese household divinity; a Chinese idol.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/dʒɒs/Received-Pronunciation/dʒɔs/General-American/dʒɑs/cot-caught-merger
  1. A Chinese household divinity; a Chinese idol.

    countable
  2. A heathen divinity.

    countable
  3. Luck.

    informal · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Chinese Pidgin English joss, from Macau Pidgin Portuguese, from Portuguese deus (“god”), from Latin deus (“god”), from Proto-Indo-European *deywós (“god/that which belongs to heaven”). Doublet of Tiw and Tyr.

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

joss has 4 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

joss studiojoss workshello, joss

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.