POTTSU-RI ぽっつり
Meanings
1. Describes a single drop of water or rain falling.
2. Describes one thing standing isolated by itself, or an extremely small amount appearing alone.
Examples
There wasn’t a cloud in sight, but a single drop of rain fell.
雲は見当たらないのに、雨がぽっつりと降ってきた。
There was one solitary house standing deep in the mountains, and it was eerie.
山奥にぽっつりと一軒家があり、不気味であった。
Dogmatic Opinion
POTTSU-RI is an intensified version of POTSURI.
The image is a dot.
A raindrop touches your skin as one isolated point. A lone house on a huge stretch of land also looks like a single dot.
That visual geometry—the tiny isolated point surrounded by emptiness—is the common core for me.
Related Words
For Japanese Learners
A single drop, one drop fell, isolated, solitary, and standing alone may fit. This page’s Japanese source does not include the separate idea of a conversation or communication suddenly stopping, so that meaning should not be added here.
