sake

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English sake (“sake, cause”), from Old English sacu (“cause, lawsuit, legal action, complaint, issue, dispute”), from Proto-West Germanic *saku, from Proto-Germanic *sakō (“affair, thing, charge, accusation, matter”), from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂g- (“to investigate”).

Akin to West Frisian saak (“cause; business”), Low German Saak, Dutch zaak (“matter; cause; business”), German Sache (“thing; matter; cause; legal cause”), Danish sag, Swedish and Norwegian sak, Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌺𐌾𐍉 (sakjō, “dispute, argument”), Old English sōcn (“inquiry, prosecution”), Old English sēcan (“to seek”). More at soke, soken, seek.

Pronunciation

• enPR: sāk, IPA^(key): /ˈseɪk/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪk

Noun

sake (plural sakes)

1. cause, interest or account

   For the sake of argument

2. purpose or end; reason

   For old times' sake

3. the benefit or regard of someone or something
   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me.

   • 2005, Plato, Sophist. Translation by Lesley Brown. 242a-b.

     But it will be for your sake that we'll undertake to refute this thesis,

4. (obsolete except in phrases) contention, strife; guilt, sin, accusation or charge
   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Genesis 3:17:

     And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.

Usage notes

• The word sake is generally used in constructions of the form "for X's sake" or "for the sake of X", where X is a noun (see the quotations above, for sake of, and for the sake of).

• Garner's Modern American Usage notes it is common to write an apostrophe rather than apostrophe–ess in this construction when the noun ends in an /s/ or /z/ sound: for appearance' sake, for goodness' sake.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

Noun

sake (countable and uncountable, plural sakes)

1. Alternative spelling of saké

Anagrams

• KEAS, Kase, akes, aske, keas, kesa, seak

Dutch

Alternative forms

• saké, saki

Etymology

From Japanese 酒 (sake, “alcoholic drink”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsaː.keː/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: sa‧ke

Noun

sake m (uncountable)

1. sake (Japanese rice wine)

   Hypernyms: rijstbier, rijstwijn

Finnish

Etymology

From Japanese 酒 (sake, “alcoholic drink”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɑke/,
• Rhymes: -ɑke
• Syllabification^(key): sa‧ke

Noun

sake

1. sake (Japanese rice wine)

Declension

Further reading

• “sake”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎ (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-03

Anagrams

• eksa-, seka-

Hausa

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sà.kéː/
  • (Standard Kano Hausa) IPA^(key):

Noun

sàkē m (possessed form sàken)

1. slackness

Indonesian

Indonesian Wikipedia has an article on:

sake

Wikipedia ^id

Etymology

From Japanese 酒(さけ) (sake, “alcoholic drink”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sa.ke/
• Hyphenation: sa‧ké

Noun

sake (plural sake-sake, first-person possessive sakeku, second-person possessive sakemu, third-person possessive sakenya)

1. sake (Japanese rice wine)

Alternative forms

• saki (nonstandard)

Further reading

• “sake” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation — Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic Indonesia, 2016.

Japanese

Romanization

sake

1. Rōmaji transcription of さけ
2. Rōmaji transcription of サケ

Kapampangan

Etymology

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *sakay.

Verb

sake

1. to board, to embark, to ride

Middle Dutch

Etymology

From Old Dutch *saka, from Proto-West Germanic *saku.

Noun

sāke f

1. case, matter, affair
2. thing
3. cause, reason

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Dutch: zaak
• Limburgish: zaak

Further reading

• “sake”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E., Verdam, J. (1885–1929) “sake”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN

Moore

Etymology

Cognate with Farefare sakɛ

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /sà.ke/

Verb

sake

1. to take out
2. to accept, agree, approve of, tolerate, permit, obey
3. to answer to a call
4. to succeed, do well

Norwegian Nynorsk

Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedia has an article on:

sake

Wikipedia ⁿⁿ

Etymology

From Japanese 酒 (sake, “alcoholic drink”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /²saːkə/

Noun

sake m (definite singular saken, indefinite plural sakar, definite plural sakane)

1. saké (Japanese rice wine)

   Hypernyms: risøl, risvin

References

• “sake” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Pali

Alternative forms

Adjective

sake

1. inflection of saka (“one's own”):
   1. masculine/neuter locative singular
   2. masculine accusative plural
   3. feminine vocative singular

Polish

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese 酒 (sake, “alcoholic drink”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsa.kɛ/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -akɛ
• Syllabification: sa‧ke

Noun

sake n (indeclinable)

1. sake (Japanese rice wine)

Further reading

• sake in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• sake in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• saquê, saqué

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from Japanese 酒 (sake, “alcoholic drink”).

Pronunciation

Noun

sake m (plural sakes)

1. sake (Japanese rice wine)

Quotations

For quotations using this term, see Citations:saquê.

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French saké.

Noun

sake n (uncountable)

1. sake

Declension

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese 酒 (sake, “alcoholic drink”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsake/
• Rhymes: -ake
• Syllabification: sa‧ke
• Homophone: saque

Noun

sake m (plural sakes)

1. sake (Japanese rice wine)

Further reading

• “sake”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

Swedish

Swedish Wikipedia has an article on:

sake

Wikipedia ^sv

Alternative forms

• saké

Noun

sake c

1. saké (rice wine)

Declension

References

• sake in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• sake in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• sake in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)