おかま

Japanese

Alternative spellings
御釜お釜御窯お窯オカマ

お釜: a cooking pot

Etymology

Compound of 御 (o-, “honorific prefix”) +‎ 釜 (kama, “pot”).[1]

The development of the slang senses appear to have started from an analogy comparing a man's butt to the shape of certain pots.

Pronunciation

(Tokyo) おかま [òkámá] (Heiban – [0])[2]
IPA^(key): [o̞ka̠ma̠]

Noun

おかま or オカマ • (okama)

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see お,‎ 釜.
1. a cooking pot
a volcanic caldera
(dated) one's wife
(archaic) a serving woman, a female servant
(slang) someone's posterior or butt, particularly a man's butt
オカマ: (slang, LGBT, sometimes offensive) a gay man, a (male) homosexual
オカマ: (slang, sometimes offensive) a man who behaves or speaks like a woman; a womanly man

See also

お焦(こ)げ (okoge, “burnt residual food; fag hag”)
おなべ (onabe, “lesbian; trans man”, literally “stew pot”)
オネエ (onē, “a feminine man”)

References

Shōgaku Tosho (1988) 国語大辞典（新装版） [Unabridged Dictionary of Japanese (Revised Edition)] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, →ISBN
Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN

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