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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

onsen.

A (Japanese) hot spring.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ɒnˈsɛn//ˈɒnsɛn/
  1. A (Japanese) hot spring.

    The hottest springs in Japan aren't in the north but at the Obama Onsen outside Nagasaki.
  2. A Japanese-style resort hotel at a natural hot spring, offering on-site bathing.

    We stayed at a traditional onsen with tatami, yukata, and kaiseki at Onyang outside Seoul.
Where this word comes from

From Japanese 温泉 (onsen), from Middle Chinese 溫泉 ('won dzjwen, “hot springs”), from 溫 /温 (wēn, “warm”) + 泉 (quán, “spring[s]”). Compare the modern Mandarin pronunciation 溫泉 /温泉 (wēnquán).

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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.