-san

See also: Appendix:Variations of "san"

English

Etymology

From Japanese さん (san).

Suffix

-san

Honorific ending used to indicate a person is Japanese or talking with Japanese, or treated like Japanese.
- August 1, 1983, Time
  Tanaka-San’s Decline and Rise
- December 16, 2008 , Wall Street Journal, [1]
  Barack Obama-san
- January 31, 2009, WalletPop, [2]
  Obama-san! President's book of speeches is a huge hit in Japan

Related terms

Translations

Japanese honorific ending

Chinese:
Mandarin: 桑 (zh) (-sāng) (rare, usually translated with honorific titles as in English - Mr, Mrs, Miss)
French: -san (fr)
Japanese: さん (ja) (-san)
Korean: 상 (ko) (sang)
Russian: -сан (ru) m or f (-san)

Mr — see Mr

Ms — see Ms

Mrs — see Mrs

Miss — see Miss

Mx — see Mx

Anagrams

ANS, NAS, NAs, NSA, SNA, ans, ans.

Azerbaijani

Verb

preceding vowel
A / I / O / U	E / Ə / İ / Ö / Ü
-san	-sən

-san

Form of -sən after the vowels A / I / O / U.

Irish

Alternative forms

-sean (used after palatalized consonants and front vowels)

Etymology

From Old Irish -som (3rd person singular masculine/neuter; 3rd person plural).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /sˠən̪ˠ/, /sˠənˠ/

Suffix

-san

emphatic suffix of the following persons; used after velarized consonants and back vowels
1. third-person singular masculine
2. third-person plural

Usage notes

Spelled with a hyphen after -s, otherwise without a hyphen.

Added to nouns (or adjectives modifying a noun) in the presence of the possessive adjective to emphasize the possessor rather than the thing possessed:
a mhadrasan ― his dog

a gcarr deargsan ― their red car
Added to pronouns (both simple and prepositional) to add emphasis (not to create a reflexive pronoun):
as-san ― out of him

siadsan, iadsan ― they, them
Added to synthetic verb forms to add emphasis to the subject (third-person plural only as there are no third-person singular synthetic forms):
chualadarsan ― they heard

Derived terms

Irish terms suffixed with -san

Japanese

Romanization

-san

Rōmaji transcription of さん

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish -som (3rd person singular masculine/neuter; 3rd person plural).

Suffix

-san

-self, -selves (emphatic)

Usage notes

Added to prepositional pronouns to add emphasis (not to create a reflexive pronoun).
Used in third-person singular masculine (eg aigesan).
Used in third-person plural (eg orrasan).
When the last letter of the prepositional pronoun is s, a hyphen is put before the suffix (eg leis-san).

Derived terms

Scottish Gaelic terms suffixed with -san

Person	After a broad consonant	After a slender consonant
1 sg.	-sa	-se
2 sg.	-sa	-se
3 sg. m.	-san	-sean
3 sg. f.	-sa	-se
1 pl.	-na	-ne -e (after nn in pronouns)
2 pl.	-sa	-se
3 pl.	-san	-sean
Emphatic suffixes are added to nouns modified by a possessive determiner to emphasize the possessor; to verbs, predicate adjectives, and predicate nouns to emphasize the subject; and to inflected prepositions to emphasize the object.