"romusha" meaning in English

See romusha in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: romusha [plural], romushas [plural], rōmusha [alternative]
Etymology: From Japanese 労務者 (rōmusha, “laborer; forced laborer”). Compare Indonesian romusa. Etymology templates: {{bor|en|ja|労務者|t=laborer; forced laborer|tr=rōmusha}} Japanese 労務者 (rōmusha, “laborer; forced laborer”), {{cog|id|romusa}} Indonesian romusa Head templates: {{en-noun|*|s}} romusha (plural romusha or romushas)
  1. A forced laborer, especially one of those made to work in the Dutch East Indies under Japanese occupation during the Second World War.
    Sense id: en-romusha-en-noun-Hl49Ppo6 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 3 entries, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ja",
        "3": "労務者",
        "t": "laborer; forced laborer",
        "tr": "rōmusha"
      },
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      "name": "bor"
    },
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      "name": "cog"
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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "romusha",
      "tags": [
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    },
    {
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      "tags": [
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          "text": "Javanese workers were known as romushas (the Japanese translation for the colonial term ‘coolie’) and put to work on Java, its neighbouring islands and across Southeast Asia.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      "glosses": [
        "A forced laborer, especially one of those made to work in the Dutch East Indies under Japanese occupation during the Second World War."
      ],
      "id": "en-romusha-en-noun-Hl49Ppo6",
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        ],
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  "word": "romusha"
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{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
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      },
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      "name": "bor"
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        "1": "id",
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      },
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      "name": "cog"
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  "etymology_text": "From Japanese 労務者 (rōmusha, “laborer; forced laborer”). Compare Indonesian romusa.",
  "forms": [
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      "tags": [
        "plural"
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    },
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        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English indeclinable nouns",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English nouns with irregular plurals",
        "English terms borrowed from Japanese",
        "English terms derived from Japanese",
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          "text": "Javanese workers were known as romushas (the Japanese translation for the colonial term ‘coolie’) and put to work on Java, its neighbouring islands and across Southeast Asia.",
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      ],
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}

Download raw JSONL data for romusha meaning in English (1.9kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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