Name: Pat
Country and
Region: Michigan
Native
Language: English
Student or
Teacher: Student
Age or Grade:
Senior
Subject of
Question: Japanese
Question:
What does "muda" mean in Japanese?
Apparently, there are
seven different meanings.
Hello. I am writing you on behalf of Ask A Linguistics Tutor in response to your question.� Well, I don't know what background you have in Japanese, but I can give you some basic information on the word muda. According to the Merriam Webster Japanese-English dictionary, muda as an noun means 'uselessness, waste, futility, no good, no avail, [in] vain,' and 'wasting time and labor.' Its characters are composed of first mu, meaning 'not' or 'nothing,' and da, meaning 'horse load; pack horse; sending by horses.'
Considering the reading of this word, it is evidently a Chinese loan-word, which must have come from the idea in Chinese culture that a horse without a load on its back is useless.