白い
しろい
hepburn shiroi
white (adjective)
Part of speech · i-adjective
Pattern visualization
Examples
- 雪は白いです。Snow is white.
- 白い犬がかわいいです。The white dog is cute.
Collocations
白い (shiroi, white — i-adj)白くなる (shiroku naru, turn white)白い嘘 (shiroi uso, "white lie")白い目で見る (shiroi me de miru, look with cold eyes)色白 (irojiro, fair-skinned)
Mnemonic
白い shiroi — i-adjective. Idiom 白い嘘 (shiroi uso, "white lie") = a benign untruth — likely a modern loan-translation from English; not native classical Japanese. Native idiom 白い目で見る = "to look with white eyes" = to view with cold disdain. Korean has a parallel "to roll the whites of one's eyes". Body-based metaphors are stable across languages.
Quick check
What kind of gaze does 白い目で見る denote?