DOPPU-RI どっぷり
Meanings
1. Describes being deeply or fully immersed in water or another liquid.
2. Figuratively, describes being deeply immersed, entrenched, or absorbed in a particular environment, culture, activity, or state.
Examples
1. Nothing makes me happier than sinking into a hot bath all the way up to my shoulders.
熱いお湯に肩までどっぷり浸かるのが幸せだ。
2. He became so deeply immersed in the criminal world that returning to ordinary society became difficult.
悪の世界にどっぷり浸かってしまい、社会復帰が難しい。
Dogmatic Opinion
DOPPU-RI very often appears with TSUKARU—“to soak” or “be immersed.”
In figurative uses, I often hear a critical attitude when the environment itself is considered undesirable: being steeped in bureaucratic culture, for example, or immersed up to the neck in conventional thinking.
The metaphor suggests more than casual involvement. Someone who has been DOPPU-RI immersed in a world has absorbed its essence so deeply that it seems to have seeped into the body and will not wash out easily.
You are not merely participating. You are in it very deep.
Proximate Expression
engrossed
immersed
addicted
fixated
Related Words
For Japanese Learners
Deeply immersed, completely immersed, steeped in, entrenched in, absorbed in, and up to one’s neck in may fit. The figurative use often carries evaluation—sometimes criticism—so “deeply involved” may be too neutral in contexts where the Japanese speaker is clearly disapproving.
