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It is a Japanese word for "harbor wave." Tsunami in Japanese is written with the symbol for wave and for harbor: "harbor" (tsu, 津) and "wave" (nami, 波). The word tsunami (pronounced su-nah'-me) has been used long enough that it has been adopted into most languages rather than being translated.

The name comes from the fact that fishermen and sailors at sea would not notice anything unusual, but would return to port to find their towns devastated. The tsunami waves can pass right under the boats at sea totally unnoticed. Due to this, they were believed to have originated in the harbors since they did not become visible until they reached the shallower waters in the harbor where they gained their enormous heights.

The Japanese word does not have a plural form and tsunami is used both for singular and plural in English in many locations. However, it has become accepted, over time, to say "tsunamis" for the plural in English.

Many early geological, geographical, and oceanographic texts refer to tsunami as "seismic sea waves."

They are sometimes mistakenly called "tidal waves," but tsunami have no relationship to the tides other than looking similar but smaller and generating some similar effects on land with flooding and devastation.

Tsunami are also sometimes incorrectly called "storm surges", which are also different wave phenomena. Tsunami have no relationship to weather. They are not caused by storms, cyclones, hurricanes, or high winds.

They are also different than "rogue waves" which are single huge waves. Tsunami are a series of waves that radiate out from the source, like ripples in a pond from a stone.

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12y ago

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