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I've been wondering if the word "Shinobi" is an accepted English word. As far as I know, its synonym "Ninja" is an accepted English word where "Spy" is the nearest common English.

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    I've personally never encountered it. Did you check any English dictionaries?
    – Dan Bron
    Aug 11, 2014 at 1:24
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    It's certainly not common. I suspect it may fight against ninja for currency.
    – user867
    Aug 11, 2014 at 1:50
  • No. Why would I use a rarely known Japanese word, when I had an English word for it already? Aug 11, 2014 at 2:56
  • The simple answer is no, as of writing. Japanese words like Katana, Ninja etc are beloved by the English-speaking countries. The new one you mention could well be used by, say, a motorbike company or something as a model name, or perhaps a film title, and it would become more and more popular, perhaps .. joining old favorites such as "ninja".
    – Fattie
    Aug 11, 2014 at 7:06
  • Joe Blow, I haven't heard of the word Katana. Where in the English-speaking world is it used and what does it mean?
    – Tristan r
    Aug 11, 2014 at 10:53

1 Answer 1

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Depends on the audience. For a general audience, it seems shinobi would not be understood.

Wikipedia has a list of English words of Japanese origin, and shinobi is not on that list, not that educated native speakers would be expected to know all those words, however.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Japanese_origin

Some native speakers of English who are pretty fluent in Japanese (such as myself) don’t even know the word shinobi. Just don’t read much about ninjas, I guess.

However, in the context of ninjas, shinobi does seems to be understood. Here is a book title at Amazon that uses the term:

The Secret Traditions of the Shinobi: Hattori Hanzo's Shinobi Hiden and Other Ninja Scrolls

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  • Agreed. I know I've heard it in videogame contexts, but I don't think I'd expect any English speaker to know it. Aug 11, 2014 at 4:37

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