'Stylel' was one of the new and important concepts in the Meiji era when the Western architecture was actively introduced into Japan. Japan had had several words which partially conveyed the concept of 'style', but had not the same word. This paper discusses the process of reception of the concept through the investigation of Japanese equivalents for 'style'. At the end of Meiji era, the word 'yoshiki' became generally to be used as a Japanese equivalent for 'style' just as we use it today. But before that, traditional Japanese words, like 'yo', 'shiki', 'fu', 'ryu', 'ha', had been used as equivalents for 'style' at the same time. Some writers used them each in its proper way according to the meaning of 'style' in the context.