調べる
しらべる
hepburn shiraberu
to investigate, to look up
Part of speech · ichidan-verb
Pattern visualization
no decomposition available
Examples
- 辞書で意味を調べる。I look up the meaning in a dictionary.
- 事実を調べた。I investigated the facts.
Collocations
調べる (shiraberu, look up / investigate)調査 (chousa, investigation)辞書 (jisho, dictionary)検索 (kensaku, search engine query)ググる (guguru, to google, coined)
Mnemonic
Shiraberu (調べる) is the ichidan transitive for "look up / investigate / examine." Kanji 調 = 言 (word) plus 周 (around) = "ask around." Senses: (1) dictionary or info lookup (jisho de shiraberu, Wikipedia de shiraberu); (2) investigation (jijitsu wo shiraberu, keisatsu ga shiraberu); (3) examination (kenkou shindan de shiraberu). 調 family: chousa, chousei, chouwa, kyouchou. Japan-specific neologism guguru (ググる, Google plus -ru verb suffix coined around 2002) is high-frequency conversational — gugutte miru (try googling), gugure (slang imperative). Korean chajaboda, Chinese cha, English look up diverge. JLPT N5 shiraberu integrates with guguru.
Quick check
Etymology and era of guguru?