Where does “nishi” come from?

nishi (English) comes from Japanese 西, from Japanese し, from Middle Chinese 氏.

nishi (English): the left-hand (less prestigious) side of the banzuke (番付, “ranking list”)

Definitions

  1. the left-hand (less prestigious) side of the banzuke (番付, “ranking list”)

Ancestry of “nishi”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese西west; the West; wind blowing from the west
2JapaneseしConjunctive particle. Follows items in a list of...
3Middle Chinese氏—
Every word from Middle Chinese 氏 →Every word from Japanese し →Every word from Japanese 西 →