Student amused to find entry—and corresponding visual—for “cat ears” in his electronic dictionary

What happens when children contribute new entries to dictionaries? Cat ears happen, that’s what! Err, but maybe not the kind we were hoping for…

Japanese Twitter user @sand_stingray recently posted an entry from his electronic dictionary, which happens to define a rather unexpected term—nekomimi, otherwise known as “cat ears” in English!

▼ A quick Google search of the term nekomimi results in the following pictures.

Since the term nekomimi typically conjures up images of cute anime-style girls with adorable cat ears, we can imagine the surprise and perhaps shock that @sand_stingray must have felt when he saw the following explanatory illustration for cat ears in his electronic dictionary:

▼ “@sand_stingray: I couldn’t stop laughing in the middle of class”

授業中笑いが止まらんかった https://t.co/usqzrcZ75W
—
霙S+ (@sand_stingray) November 25, 2015

▼ First picture

“Japanese dictionary by everyone!

Cat ears [nekomimi]

Definition: Human characters who have cat ears on their head. Often used by fans of anime.

Sample sentence: ‘The character with the cat ears is so cute!’

Submitted by: Third-year junior high school student, male, Hokkaido

Diagram → Explanation”

▼ Second picture

“Diagram → Explanation”

▼ Third picture

Whoah there! Not quite the anime-style babe with cat ears that we’re used to seeing. If anything, this lady seems to be in need of either a bit more shut-eye or a personal stylist…

Even better, another Twitter user decided to poke fun at the picture and subsequently designed a New Year’s greeting postcard with the cat-lady front and center: