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