karesansui

English

Etymology

From Japanese 枯山水.

Noun

karesansui (plural karesansui)

1. (often attributive) A Japanese rock garden or Zen garden.
   • 1962, Philip K. Dick, “The Man in the High Castle”, in Four Novels of the 1960s, Library of America, published 2007, page 27:

     Wall of offices, windows, the fabulous design of the Japanese architects—and the surrounding gardens of dwarf evergreens, rocks, the karesansui landscape, sand imitating a dried-up stream winding past roots, among simple, irregular flat stones….

   • 2002, Alison Main, Newell Platten, The Lure of the Japanese Garden, page 101:

     Suden commissioned master garden-designer Kobori Enshu to build the karesansui garden south of the hojo.

   • 2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Granta Books, published 2013, page 193:

     To some observers a karesansui is just twigs, rocks and grit.