tatami

noun — 2 senses

tatami

noun

/təˈtɑːmi/

Etymology Borrowed from Japanese 畳 (tatami).

1

Straw matting, in a standard size, used as a floor covering in Japanese houses.

  • Heny Hankovitch, con guítar, / did a short Zen pray, / on his tatami in a relaxed lotos / fixin his mind on nuffin, rose-blue breasts,1964, John Berryman, chapter 31, in 77 Dream Songs, New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, page 35:
  • Small tools are spread on the tatami: a razor knife, a sprue cutter, curls of emery paper.1999, William Gibson, All Tomorrow's Parties (Bridge trilogy; book 3), New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →ISBN, page 2:
2

A unit of area equal to a standard-sized tatami mat, approximately 1.65 square metres.

Derived terms
tatamied

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.