koban

Borrowed from Japanese 小判(こばん) (koban).

• cobang, coebang, kobang

koban (plural koban or kobans)

1. An oval gold coin in the Edo period of feudal Japan.
   • 1906, Ernest W[ilson] Clement, editor, Hildreth’s “Japan as it Was and Is”: A Handbook of Old Japan, volume II, Chicago, Ill.: A. C. McClurg & Co., page 40:

     Every landlord hath two koban paid him for dinner, and three for supper and lodgings at night.

   • 1975, James Clavell, Shōgun: A Novel of Japan, volume 2, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, page 620:

     “Shall we say two koban for this evening—a measure of my desire to please a Lady of such merit?”

   • 2006, Timon Screech, Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822, London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 140:

     It contained, as usual, nothing but an invitation to come to Edo to confer on matters respecting which it did not enter into any particulars, with an offer of three koban for the expenses of the journey.

A koban in the Ginza district of Tokyo

Borrowed from Japanese 交番(こうばん) (kōban).

koban (plural koban or kobans)

1. A small community police office or a police box, especially one in Japan.
   • 1976, David H. Bayley, Forces of Order: Police Behavior in Japan and the United States, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, published 1978, →ISBN, page 13:

     Personnel of kobans change each shift; they report for duty at a police station and fan out to the kobans.

     The 1991 edition uses koban as the plural.

• Banko

koban

1. Rōmaji transcription of こばん

kȏb (“fate, omen”) +‎ -an.

• IPA^(key): /kôːban/
• Hyphenation: ko‧ban

kȏban (definite kȏbnī, Cyrillic spelling ко̑бан)

1. fatal, baleful, ominous
2. tragic, unlucky