Senseis

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A title used to refer to a teacher or instructor, particularly in martial arts or certain fields of study
2. A term denoting someone who imparts wisdom or training to students, often with a strong emphasis on discipline
3. A respectful address for experts or masters in particular disciplines, conveying honor and recognition of their knowledge and skill

Etymology: "Senseis" is simply the plural of "sensei," so the story belongs to the singular. The Japanese word 先生 (sensei) combines 先, meaning "earlier" or "first," with 生, meaning "born," and so its literal sense is something like "one born before," an elder or a person of greater experience. That sense of seniority carried over into its use as a respectful term for a teacher. The word reached Japanese from Chinese, where the same characters were pronounced roughly "sen sraeng" in Middle Chinese and meant "master" or "elder." Modern Mandarin still uses 先生 (xiānshēng) as the polite equivalent of "Mr.," so the title that a Japanese student gives a martial arts instructor shares its ancestry with a courtesy form used across the Chinese-speaking world. A close relative of the word is "sinseh," a term for a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner. It comes from the Hokkien pronunciation of the same two characters, making the two words doublets: one entered English through Japanese, the other through a southern Chinese dialect.

Synonyms: masters, teachers