netsuke
noun
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Netsuke - the word in English can be pluralized as either netsuke or netsukes - were traditionally part of a man's dress, used to attach a medicine box, pipe, or tobacco pouch to the sash (called an obi) of a Japanese man's traditional kimono. Because the members of the newly risen merchant class, ranking below the samurai, were not permitted to wear jewelry, netsuke took the place of other personal adornment. With the end of the Tokugawa regime, leading to new customs of dress and the introduction of the cigarette shortly thereafter, netsuke became obsolete, though some were still carved to supply the demand of foreign residents and tourists.
Examples of netsuke in a Sentence
Chicago Tribune, 10 June 2025
On the mantle, a collection of Japanese netsuke was displayed.
—The New Yorker, 17 Oct. 2023
Charles later gave the netsuke as a wedding present to a cousin living in Vienna.
—Washington Post, 7 Jan. 2022
And like the book, the show keeps circling back to the netsuke — unveiling them in groups, with four different glass cases placed at intervals — to underscore the endurance of these objects across a century of violence, discrimination and dispossession.
—New York Times, 29 Dec. 2021
Among the netsuke are a persimmon with a ladybird, a snake on a lotus leaf, three mice playing and a monkey eating a peach.
—Sandee Brawarsky, sun-sentinel.com, 22 Nov. 2021
The 12 zodiac animals are introduced in a series of large woodblock prints, as well as in a single 15/8 -inch densely inhabited netsuke, and an ingenious print of a unique creature combining the features of all 12.
—Karen Wilkin, WSJ, 25 June 2019
Cite this Entry
“Netsuke.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/netsuke. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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