About This Site

What are “○っ○り” words?

Many words in this pattern function like adverbs or descriptive expressions for actions, states, textures, feelings, and degrees. There are also a few nouns, such as tsuppari and tecchiri, and words such as bikkuri that behave more like verbs in everyday Japanese.

When I first built this site, I checked Japanese dictionaries of mimetic and onomatopoeic expressions and found roughly 320 “○っ○り”-shaped expressions. Around 150 of them appeared to be archaic or dialectal.

This site therefore focuses on 170 expressions that are more likely to be understood in modern Japanese, including some expressions that are not listed in the dictionaries I consulted.

Are they all onomatopoeia?

No. Japanese has a huge number of sound-symbolic and mimetic expressions—kira-kira, wan-wan, gatan-goton, jiro-jiro, and many more. Some ○っ○り words, such as gisshiri and gussuri, belong to that broad world of mimetic language.

But not all 170 words on this site are onomatopoeia.

For learners, the more useful question is often not “What grammatical box does this word belong to?” but “In what situation would a Japanese speaker choose this word, and what image does it carry?”

Japanese speakers use these words constantly

Native speakers rarely notice how often they rely on mimetic language and ○っ○り words. Trying to get through a whole day without them can make ordinary conversation surprisingly awkward.

Back in 2022, I made up the following deliberately overstuffed example:

A Japanese reader can picture this ridiculous little story quite vividly. The expressions are informal, but they show how efficiently Japanese uses sound and sensation to pack mood, movement, texture, and attitude into a sentence.

And if you asked me to translate every nuance perfectly into English—I would cry.

Native speakers share images without noticing it

Consider assari, sappari, and sukkiri. Their dictionary definitions can overlap, yet native speakers do not use them interchangeably.

After a haircut, “You look sukkiri” or “You look sappari” can sound natural. “You look assari,” however, feels strange and may suggest something unintended.

Japanese speakers usually do not stop to explain these distinctions to one another. We simply share enough of the underlying image to choose one word rather than another. This website tries to make some of those unspoken shared images visible.

The same is true of a word such as gappori. A compact dictionary definition may say that it describes gaining or losing a large amount of money, but in real conversation it often carries extra shades—easy or irregular profit, envy, suspicion, or a sense that the amount is somehow disproportionate to the effort.

Why these words are hard for learners

Sound effects such as gatan-goton (a train), kokekokko (a rooster), or wan-wan (a dog) can often be guessed from context even when another language imitates the sound differently.

But what about assari and kotteri on a ramen menu? No literal sound is being made, yet a Japanese speaker may immediately imagine richness, heaviness, lightness, and aftertaste.

I do not think the useful conclusion is “Japanese is uniquely difficult.” A bigger problem is that these expressions are so ordinary to native speakers that we have rarely tried to explain them from the viewpoint of someone who did not grow up with them.

Dictionary meaning + a personal “Dogmatic Opinion”

Each entry includes a dictionary-style meaning, but dictionaries are a kind of craftsmanship: they compress a word into the fewest possible words.

This site adds a deliberately subjective section called “Dogmatic Opinion”—my attempt to describe the image, feeling, implication, or social nuance that may not fit neatly into a short definition.

Of course, Japanese varies by person, region, generation, and context. Another native speaker may say, “No, that is not how I feel at all.” That disagreement is fine. Think of these notes as a record of how one native speaker experiences the language.

I also sometimes omit dictionary senses that I personally have never heard or used in ordinary life.

For Japanese learners

You do not need to master these expressions actively. In fact, using Japanese mimetic language naturally can be difficult even for highly fluent learners.

The first goal of this site is simpler: when you meet these words in manga, films, television, conversation, menus, or everyday writing, you should be able to recognize not only the basic meaning but also the feeling behind it.

For native Japanese speakers

There is another way to enjoy the site: ask yourself, “How would I say this in English?”

Words that feel effortless in Japanese often split into several very different English expressions depending on context. Looking at Japanese from the outside can reveal just how much meaning native speakers normally leave unspoken.

New expressions can still be born

Language keeps creating itself.

I once saw the expression pukkuri namidabukuro (“puffy under-eye bags”) in a women’s magazine. Whether or not a dictionary had already recorded that exact use, the image was instantly understandable.

When my daughter was little, she once said of a teddy bear, “This bear is sleeping gū-suya.” I had never heard the word before. She had blended gussuri (sleeping deeply) and suya-suya (sleeping peacefully).

It was a brand-new word—and yet the image of a very comfortably sleeping bear came across immediately.

The slightly naughty side of ○っ○り

There is another curious side to these words. Many ○っ○り expressions describe things like body shape, closeness, moisture, texture, or intensity. None of that is necessarily sexual. But put enough of them together in the right order, and Japanese can become surprisingly suggestive without using many explicitly sexual words.

Here is a slightly naughty example.

ある男と女がいた。ふたりは周囲に秘密の関係で、週末にふたりでしっぽりと温泉宿へ。ぽっちゃりというよりは、むっちりした女は部屋に入るやいなや、べったりと男に寄り添いねっとりと見つめている。女のしっとり、ぽってりした唇を見ていると、むっつりスケベな男も我慢ができない。ぴったり体を寄せればあそこはもっこりと。二人はじっとり汗ばみ、女はぐっしょり濡れて、ずっぽり――

There was a man and a woman. Their relationship was a secret, and one weekend they slipped away together to a hot-spring inn to spend some shippori time alone.

The woman was not so much pocchari (chubby) as mucchiri (full and curvy). As soon as they entered the room, she pressed herself bettari against him and gazed at him nettori, with a lingering intensity.

Looking at her shittori, potteri lips—soft, moist, and plump—the secretly lustful, muttsuri-sukebe man could no longer contain himself.

As their bodies pressed pittari together, a certain part of him became mokkori.

Soon they were sweating jittori, she was gusshori wet, and then came zuppori—

Thirteen ○っ○り words appear in this tiny story.

Most of them are not explicitly sexual words. They simply describe closeness, moisture, texture, body shape, intensity, or the way something fits. Yet together, in this particular context, they create a surprisingly sensual scene.

That is part of the fun—and the difficulty—of Japanese onomatopoeia. A dictionary can tell you what a word means, but not always what it feels like.

I hope you enjoy this mysterious, flexible, and slightly strange world of Japanese.