料理
Meaning in Englishcooking, dish, cuisine
Animated kanji stroke order
Related sentences
Word context
What it means
料理 (ryouri) means cooking; it denotes the act and skill of preparing food as well as the food prepared, and is used to talk about dishes, meals, and culinary practice in general for home, restaurant, or cultural cuisine contexts.
Main meanings
- As a verbal-noun base combined with する it becomes an action-form meaning 'to cook' or 'to prepare food' in practical speech.
- Used to indicate a style or category of cuisine (e.g., national or regional culinary tradition) rather than a single recipe.
- Occasionally used metaphorically to mean 'to handle' or 'to manage' a task when combined with する in casual contexts.
- Appears in compound words to name roles, places, or methods related to cooking (chef, restaurant, cooking method).
How to use it
Used across everyday and formal settings: in conversation about meals, on menus, in recipes, cookbooks, TV and restaurant contexts; it functions as a noun and as the base for a する-verb for actions, and can appear in formal documents when describing culinary services or in casual talk about home-cooked meals.
Variants and close terms
- 調理 (chouri) — cooking, food preparation (more technical/formal)
- 食事 (shokuji) — meal, dining (focus on eating rather than preparing)
- 料理人 (ryourinin) — chef, cook
- 料理店 (ryouriten) — restaurant, eatery
- 料理法 (ryourihou) — cooking method, technique
Composition
- 料 (ryou) originally relates to materials, fees, or measure — here implying ingredients or materials used for preparation.
- 理 (ri) conveys logic, arrangement, or principle — here implying processing, arranging, or the methodical aspect of preparing food.
- Together 料理 (ryouri) combines the idea of materials/ingredients and method/arrangement to mean food prepared by skillful handling.
Origin
The concept of cooking of course predates written records in Japan, but the compound 料理 became established through Sino-Japanese vocabulary influence; as culinary techniques and professional food service grew during the medieval and Edo periods, the term was adopted into everyday and specialized language to describe both practiced skills and prepared cuisine.
Word class
Noun; verbal noun (suru-verb) (名詞／サ変名詞)