Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A member of a class of medieval Japanese mercenary agents who were trained in the martial arts and hired for covert operations such as assassination and sabotage.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun martial arts, historical A person trained primarily in stealth, espionage, assassination and the Japanese martial art of ninjutsu.
  • noun A Mongolian amateurish private miner (mainly for gold); after the shape of the plastic bowls used to wash metal ore with mercury, roughly resembling one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
  • noun slang Juggalo version of the epithet "nigga".
  • verb To act in the manner of a ninja, especially in the areas of speed and power.
  • verb gaming, slang To claim an item in a game by abusing game mechanics, often despite having no real need for the item or ability to use it.
  • verb Internet, slang To post a response on a message board immediately before someone else unknowingly posts a response saying the same thing.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a class of 14th century Japanese who were trained in martial arts and were hired for espionage and assassinations
  • noun a member of the ninja who were trained in martial arts and hired for espionage or sabotage or assassinations; a person skilled in ninjutsu

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Japanese : nin, to endure (from Early Middle Chinese ɲin’; also the source of Mandarin rěn) + sha, person (from Middle Chinese tʂia´, pronoun for head of a relative clause; also the source of Mandarin zhě).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Japanese 忍者 (ninja).

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Examples

Comments

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  • See also: pirate.

    December 16, 2006

  • Also fun as a verb.

    October 31, 2007

  • Ninj:

    The verb form of Ninja.

    January 15, 2015