What is cement in Japanese?

Written by Editorial Team | Last Updated: August 2026

In Japanese, the word for cement is "semento" (セメント), which is a direct loanword from the English word "cement." It is written primarily in Katakana because it is a foreign-derived term. In the construction industry and technical literature, you will also encounter kanji characters that refer to specific types of cement-based products or the composition of materials. For example, "konkurīto" (コンクリート) is the loanword for "concrete." Japanese engineering professionals are very careful to distinguish between these two terms in the same way their global counterparts do. When discussing construction materials, you might hear "semento" used in the context of mortar (morumoru) or general masonry work. The usage is identical to the English-speaking world, where the powder binder is the cement, and the final hardened mixture is the concrete, though both loanwords are used extensively in modern Japanese society.

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