Tsunami

How to spell tsunami

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce tsunami

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tsunami mean?

1. nounA very large and destructive sea wave, usually caused by an underwater earthquake or volcanic eruption.
2. nounA sudden, overwhelming flood of something such as messages, demand, or change.

Tsunami in a sentence

• The coastal town built a high wall to protect homes from a future tsunami.

• The product launch unleashed a tsunami of customer emails overnight.

• The undersea earthquake triggered a tsunami that reached the shore within minutes.

• The new policy created a tsunami of paperwork for the whole office.

Where does tsunami come from?

Language of origin: Japanese

This word comes directly from Japanese, where it is written 津波 and built from two everyday parts: tsu, meaning 'harbour' or 'port', and nami, meaning 'wave'. The literal sense is therefore a 'harbour wave', a name that reflects how such a wave often seems modest out at sea yet rears up destructively as it reaches the shallow water and bays of a coast. English picked the term up in the late nineteenth century, and it spread rapidly in scientific and journalistic use after major Pacific disasters in the twentieth century. The spelling preserves the Japanese romanisation faithfully, which is why English keeps the unexpected initial 't' before the 's' even though most English speakers do not pronounce it. That silent-looking 'ts' opening is precisely the trap: the word is spoken roughly as 'soo-nah-mee' but must still be written with the leading t.

How the word is built

• tsu (harbour)
• nami (wave)