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”).

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])
• IPA^(key): [o̞ka̠ma̠]

Noun

おかま or オカマ • (okama) 

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see お,‎ 釜.
   1. a cooking pot
2. a volcanic caldera
3. (dated) one's wife
4. (archaic) a serving woman, a female servant
5. (slang) someone's posterior or butt, particularly a man's butt
6. オカマ: (slang, LGBTQ, sometimes offensive) a gay man, a (male) homosexual
7. 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”)