ninja

Definition

A person trained in ninjutsu, especially (historical) one used for espionage, assassination, and other tasks requiring stealth during Japan's shogunate period.

Etymology

A romanized borrowing of Japanese 忍者 (ninja), popularized within Japanese by manga after World War II and in English by Eric Van Lustbader's 1980 novel The Ninja and the 1981 movie Enter the Ninja, of uncertain derivation but with an underlying sense of secret or hidden person. The “Mongolian miner” sense arose from the supposed resemblance of the bowls used to wash ore with mercury to the shells of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Juggalo slang sense arose via influence from AAVE nigga.

Example Sentences

• "He used to work in the Japanese agency as a ninja."
• "The men... are now learning to be ninja or ‘stealers-in’."
• "Spies prowled Japan from the seventh century, but the secretive ninja left few written records."

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