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What is the origin of the mimetic term じろじろ? As in じろじろ見ないでください。 How does
jirojiro mimic or suggest someone staring?

[This answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/90469/31807) mentions how
anime characters will literally say this, but does not explain the ideographic
connection to staring.
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2021-12-22T01:05:26.843
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2021-12-22T01:48:07.283
31807
question
etymology sound-symbolism
How does じろじろ suggest staring?
The word じろじろ is part of a cluster of related adverbs.

  * [じろじろ](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%98%E3%82%8D%E3%81%98%E3%82%8D-536287) -- First cited to 1700. Found in some older texts as ぢろぢろ.
  * [じろり](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%98%E3%82%8D%E3%82%8A-536416#E7.B2.BE.E9.81.B8.E7.89.88.20.E6.97.A5.E6.9C.AC.E5.9B.BD.E8.AA.9E.E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E5.85.B8) -- First cited to 1871. Found in some older texts as ぢろり.
  * じらり -- Date unknown. No actual dictionary entry for this, although it is listed as a synonym in the [じろり entry](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%98%E3%82%8D%E3%82%8A-536416#E7.B2.BE.E9.81.B8.E7.89.88.20.E6.97.A5.E6.9C.AC.E5.9B.BD.E8.AA.9E.E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E5.85.B8).
  * [じろっと](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%98%E3%82%8D%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A8-297390) -- First cited to 1903. Found in some older texts as ぢろっと.

All of these have to do with "moving the eyes and staring pointedly".

I had first thought that maybe the じろ was a shift from しろ and had to do with
the whites of the eyes somehow, and the voicing indicated a softer or rounder
kind of motion. However, the root is clearly ぢろ, not じろ. I'm not sure how this
sound symbolism plays out; the initial ぢ is certainly unusual. It's possible
that the initial ぢ arose as a kind of emphasis of じ, in which case this might
still be related to the whites of the eyes, and / or to adverb じっと
("fixedly").

The ろ seems to be related to, or at least suggestive of, the ろ in adverbs like
ぎょろぎょろ ("rollingly", as when rolling one's eyes) or ころころ ("rollingly", as when
something rolls around).
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