a. and sb. [f. JAPAN + -ESE: in F. Japonnais, Sp. Japonés, etc.]
A. adj. Of or pertaining to Japan.
[1588. R. Parke, trans. Mendoza’s Hist. China, 375. There is no nation so abhorred of the Chinos as is the Iapones.]
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, II. xiii. Japanese merchants.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Fayfena, a sort of Japonese galley.
1860. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., III. 72. The Japanese trays are for the new drawing-room.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 4 July, 4/2. What more picturesque than the Japanese umbrellas—some of them big enough for a parachute.
B. absol., or as sb. 1. A native of Japan.
Formerly as true sb. with pl. in -es; now only as adj. used absol. and unchanged for pl.: a Japanese, two Japanese, the Japanese.
1604. E. G[rimstone], D’Acosta’s Hist. Indies, V. xxv. 401. A Iapponois reported this after hee was christened.
1613. R. Cocks, in J. Saris, Voy. to Japan (Hakl. Soc.), 151. The King made Proclamation that no Iapanese should receiue any of our people into their houses after day light was done.
1665. Sir T. Roe’s Voy. E. Ind., in G. Havers, P. della Vale’s Trav. E. Indies, 375. I have taken special notice of divers Chinesaas and Japanesaas there.
1693. Sir T. P. Blount, Nat. Hist., 105. The Iapponeses prepare [tea] … quite otherwise than is done in Europe.
1707. Psalmanazar (title), Dialogue between a Japanese and a Formosan.
1839. Penny Cycl., XIII. 93/2. All travellers who have been acquainted with both nations prefer the Japanese to the Chinese.
2. The Japanese language.
1828. in Webster.
1861. J. Hoffmann (title), Shopping-dialogues in Dutch, English and Japanese.
1880. Max Müller, Ess. (1881), II. 338. A Chinese vocabulary with Sanskrit equivalents and a transliteration in Japanese.
