Curio
Today

tofu

TOH-foo · noun

Middle ChineseJapaneseEnglish

Origin

Tofu comes from Japanese 豆腐 (tōfu), which was itself borrowed from Middle Chinese 豆腐, meaning "curdled bean."

Journey

The word passed from Middle Chinese into Japanese with its meaning intact, and English later borrowed the Japanese form as-is.

Related words

Tofu is a doublet of dubu (the Korean word for the same food) and doufu (a Chinese-derived English form) — three different routes from the same Middle Chinese root arriving in English.

More words

From Middle Chinese

Nearby, A–Z

All words A–Z →