ninja
Part of speech: noun
adj
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: computing
engineering
games
gaming
government
hobbies
lifestyle
martial-arts
mathematics
military
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
politics
sciences
sports
video-games
war
Etymology: A romanized borrowing of Japanese 忍者 (ninja), popularized within Japanese by manga after World War II and in English by Eric Van Lustbader's 1980 novel The Ninja and the 1981 movie Enter the Ninja, of uncertain derivation but with an underlying sense of secret or hidden person.
The “Mongolian miner” sense arose from the supposed resemblance of the bowls used to wash ore with mercury to the shells of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The Juggalo slang sense arose via influence from AAVE nigga.
Inflected forms:
form: ninja
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: ninjas
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: ninjas
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: ninjaing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: ninjaed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: ninjaed
pos: verb
tags: past
form: ninja'd
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: ninja'd
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A person trained in ninjutsu, especially (historical) one used for espionage, assassination, and other tasks requiring stealth during Japan's shogunate period.
pos: noun
examples: He used to work in the Japanese agency as a ninja.
The men... are now learning to be ninja or ‘stealers-in’.
Spies prowled Japan from the seventh century, but the secretive ninja left few written records.
gloss: A person considered similarly skillful to the historical ninja, especially in covert or stealthy operation.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: For months the Japanese spoke of national-security adviser Henry Kissinger as a ninja—the magician of Japanese legends who performs supernatural acts and practices sorcery.
Other bankers are dubbing themselves ninja, modern-day descendants of the superspies of 17th century samurai houses.
Young banking and securities firms executives (nicknamed the ninja...) are especially assigned to cultivate relations with the finance ministry. Only verbal instructions are ever given to the ninja.
A JavaScript ninja should write lots of code and build things!
gloss: A person considered similarly skillful to the historical ninja, especially in covert or stealthy operation.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
in-plural
slang
examples: I had TOTK running on my pc 2 weeks before it released on the switch and I'm still here. They can send the ninjas, I'm waiting.
Nintendo ninjas were inside the discord, watching. Now all the Yuzu devs have turned over all electronic devices, websites, logs...
gloss: A person considered similarly skillful to the historical ninja, especially in covert or stealthy operation.
pos: noun
tags: dated
especially
figuratively
informal
examples: A ninja developer can take advantage of this when building large software systems, adding a bit of C# and a dabble of Python.
If you're a Linux ninja, this book still gives you a solid reference on the Raspberry Pi and the version of Linux it uses, but no prior Linux knowledge is required.
But in a trawl of British job adverts in 2019, Bartleby found requests for "a call-centre ninja", "a black-belt prioritisation ninja" and one post demanding "a ninja-like attention to detail ".
gloss: A person considered to look like the historical ninja in some way, including (historical slang) an amateur private miner in Mongolia.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: He immediately suspected they were ninjas because, he said, they were dressed in black and wore masks, trademarks of the mysterious assassins who have been sowing terror across East Java in recent months.
Yen buyers were more subdued... fearing the Bank of Japan's new strategy of covert intervention to buy U.S. dollars through agent banks—described by some as the central bank's ninjas or secret agents.
Many were former nomads, but as the gold rush gathered pace, students, vets and taxi drivers from Ulan Bator joined the ninjas, not just in Ogoomor but in other gold towns across the country.
gloss: Synonym of nigga as a friendly term of address.
pos: noun
tags: euphemistic
examples: What's up, ninjas?
I'm thicker than a Snicker, I'm thicker than your ninja!
gloss: Synonym of nigga as a friendly term of address.
pos: noun
tags: euphemistic
examples: What up, my ninja!
gloss: nigger.
pos: noun
tags: derogatory
ethnic
euphemistic
offensive
slur
vulgar
gloss: Fast and sneaky.
pos: adj
tags: informal
not-comparable
examples: After Marshall fell asleep Elisa eventually jumped into the bed with me while I was turned facing away from her. She was very ninja about it as she put it.
With a meager budget, the decision was made to go to a new construction site after dark to borrow some needed lumber. The ninja theft went as planned.
Double entrapments thus take place in Judah's move: Judah turned Tamar's father's home into a trap for Tamar, and he also trapped Shelah in Bathshua's home. Would Bathshua have approved of Judah's ninja move?
[…]no one else would even know of such a stealthy ninja steal.
gloss: To act or move like a ninja, particularly with regard to a combination of speed, power, and stealth.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
examples: I leapt up, ninja'd over to Gav's bed and wheeched the duvet off.
In our dark house we were ninja-ing around with water guns.
I ninja'd my way into Kung Fu Records to hang out with those merry pranksters the Vandals.
gloss: to beat someone to a post; to make the same reply just before the other party finishes typing, making their response redundant.
pos: verb
tags: Internet
examples: When I hit post, I saw that Blue Emu had ninja'd me, so I just deleted my reply.
gloss: To claim an item through abuse of game mechanics.
pos: verb
tags: Internet
slang
examples: That damn warrior ninja'd an epic-quality wand even though he can't even use it!
Synonyms: killer
spy
superspy
magician
secret agent
Related words: ninja loan
NINJA loan
ninjato
ninjutsu
ninjitsu
ninpo
Derived words: Fruit Ninja champion
ginger ninja
mall ninja
ninja cop
ninja foot
ninja gym
ninjalike
ninja loot
ninja looter
ninja miner
ninja rock
ninja star
ninja sword
ninja van
ninjette
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