Cosplay

How to spell cosplay

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cosplay

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cosplay mean?

1. nounThe hobby of dressing up as a fictional character, usually from anime, comics, film or games.
2. verbTo dress up and act as a fictional character at an event.

Cosplay in a sentence

• noun

  The convention set aside a whole hall for cosplay contests.

• verb

  They plan to cosplay as characters from the same video game this weekend.

• noun

  She spent three months sewing an outfit for the cosplay competition.

• verb

  Every year he likes to cosplay at the comic convention downtown.

Where does cosplay come from?

Language of origin: Japanese

Cosplay is a blend of the English words 'costume' and 'play', but the blend itself was actually minted in Japan rather than in the English-speaking world. The Japanese writer Nobuyuki Takahashi is usually credited with coining the term, written in Japanese as 'kosupure', after attending an American science-fiction convention in the early 1980s and wanting a snappy name for fans who dressed as their favourite characters. The compressed form drops most of 'costume', keeping only 'cos', which is the spelling trap, since the natural instinct is to write 'cause' or 'cost'. From Japanese fan culture the word travelled back into English during the 1990s and spread worldwide with anime, comic and gaming conventions. Today it names both the hobby and the act of performing a character in a handmade outfit, and it works as a noun and a verb alike.

How the word is built

• cos- (clipped from costume)
• play (dress-up performance)