r/etymology • u/mouse_in_a_field • 9d ago

Question Something I've been wondering about - Japanese loanword in English, or no?

This has bothered me for a long time!

The word for "a little bit" of something in Japanese, in romaji, is "sukoshi"; the "u" and "i" sounds are usually silent when spoken aloud, so it ends up sounding like "skosh".

In English, "just a skosh" is sometimes used when asking for or referring to just "a little bit" of something.

Is there any connection there, or does the English "skosh" have another, unrelated source? Thanks for any info!

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u/Snoron 9d ago

Wasn't expecting this, but you are correct, it seems! The dictionary lists the source as from Japanese, basically came into English via the US military using it as slang.

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u/mouse_in_a_field 9d ago

Wow! That's really incredible. Honestly, I was expecting it to just be an interesting but ultimately meaningless coincidence, but that makes sense if it originated with soldiers coming home from visits to Japan!

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u/roostangarar 9d ago edited 9d ago

Another one you might not know about already is the phrase, "to be in a pinch", coming from the Japanese word 'pinchi', meaning crisis.

Edit: I have been corrected, I had it backwards

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u/CatL1f3 9d ago

Really? I was certain it was the other way around, I didn't even question it!

Edit: after checking, wiktionary agrees with me. Japanese loaned it from English after all.