Ramen

How to spell ramen

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce ramen

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ramen mean?

1. nounA Japanese dish of wheat noodles served in a seasoned broth, often with toppings such as pork, egg, or vegetables.

Ramen in a sentence

• The new ramen shop near the station has a long queue at lunch.

• He ordered a steaming bowl of ramen with extra pork and a soft egg.

Where does ramen come from?

Language of origin: Japanese

Ramen is a Japanese word, written in katakana as the foreign loan ラーメン, that names a dish of wheat noodles served in a savoury broth. The Japanese term was itself borrowed from Chinese, most likely from lamian, meaning 'pulled noodles', where la means 'to pull or stretch' and mian means 'noodles or dough'. The dish spread in Japan during the early twentieth century, often sold by Chinese cooks, and became a national staple after instant versions were invented in the 1950s. English speakers adopted the word in the later twentieth century as Japanese cuisine grew popular abroad, keeping the simple phonetic spelling. The main spelling trap is resisting the urge to write an English-looking 'ramein' or 'rahmen'; the form is just the five plain letters r, a, m, e, n.

How the word is built

• ramen (single borrowed root from Japanese; not built from English prefixes or suffixes)