What is the Japanese word for "dog"?

The Japanese word for “dog” is inu.

In Japanese, inu is commonly written 犬 in kanji or いぬ in hiragana. The word can refer to a dog generally, while compounds and context can specify breeds or other meanings. Japanese also uses loanwords, so “dog” may occasionally appear in modern expressions involving the English-derived word doggu, but inu is the standard native Japanese word.

The kanji 犬 is pronounced inu in its Japanese kun-yomi, or native Japanese reading. It also has an on-yomi reading, ken, which appears in compounds such as kenkyō, meaning “dog breed,” and banken, meaning “watchdog.”

Learners sometimes confuse inu with neko, which means “cat.” Another useful related word is koinu, meaning “puppy,” formed with ko-, a prefix meaning “young” or “small.”