Shokupan
/ˌʃoʊ.kʊˈpɑːn/noun
A Japanese-style soft, square-topped loaf of white bread, often baked in a lidded pan.
Did you know?Its second element, pan, entered Japanese through Portuguese pão, preserving a linguistic trace of early Portuguese contact with Japan.
Etymological Timeline
Ancient Chinese
Middle Chinese
食
“food; to eat; the source of the Sino-Japanese reading shoku”
16th Century
Portuguese
pão
“bread”
16th–17th Century
Japanese
パン (pan)
“bread, borrowed from Portuguese pão”
Modern Japanese
Japanese
食パン (shokupan)
“literally “food bread”; the ordinary loaf intended as staple food”
20th Century
Japanese
食パン (shokupan)
“the soft, square loaf style now strongly associated with Japanese bakeries”
Modern English
English
shokupan
“a Japanese milk-bread-style loaf, increasingly used as a culinary loanword”
Explore more surprising origins