じみた
- 1A person's behavior or manner shows traits of X, usually undesirable ones such as madness or childishness.Ex. 1
- 2An atmosphere or situation feels suggestive of X, as if it were X.Ex. 2
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It is used in both speech and writing to criticize or comment wryly on how someone or something comes across. Common combinations include 子供じみた, 年寄りじみた, 所帯じみた, 説教じみた and 芝居じみた. Unlike neutral resemblance markers, it typically carries a negative evaluation, although some combinations can sound neutral or even admiring (天才じみた発想).
Note that じみた usually implies an unwelcome resemblance, so it is a risky choice for praise, despite admiring uses like 天才じみた発想.
Do not attach じみた to verbs or い-adjectives; it follows nouns only.
Note that the plain present predicate is normally じみている, not the bare form じみる.
- めくN1「めく」 also expresses having a certain quality, but it carries no positive or negative judgment and leans literary; it often describes a season showing its signs (「春めく」), which 「じみた」 rarely does. 「じみた」 usually carries a negative evaluation, while its register is neutral.
- っぽいN3When attaching to a noun to mean 'like ~', the two are close in meaning, e.g. 「子供じみた」 ≈ 「子供っぽい」. 「っぽい」 is colloquial and can also attach to い-adjective stems and the masu-stem of verbs; 「じみた」 attaches only to nouns and its collocations are relatively fixed.
- ぶるN1「ぶる」 means deliberately putting on the airs of some status or style, with a clearly negative nuance; besides nouns it also attaches to い- and な-adjective stems and conjugates as a godan verb. 「じみた」 describes something naturally showing that appearance, and can also describe the quality or atmosphere of things.
- びるN1「びる」 is limited to a small set of fixed words such as 「大人びる」 and 「古びる」, can attach to adjective stems, and its positive or negative tone depends on the word, leaning literary. 「じみた」 attaches only to nouns and is mostly negative. With 「子供」 and 「大人」 the two are close in meaning.
- まみれN1「まみれ」 describes being smeared all over with mud, blood, sweat and the like, or figuratively being mired in debt or lies—things that are mostly undesirable—and refers to actually being covered or sunk in something, not 'like ~'; to modify a noun you must say 「血まみれの手」. The two cannot be interchanged.
めく marks signs of something emerging (春めく) without negative judgment, っぽい is casual and attaches more widely, ぶる means deliberately putting on airs, and びる describes taking on a quality (大人びる). まみれ means being covered in something unpleasant, literally (泥まみれ) or figuratively (借金まみれ), whereas じみた points out a usually unwanted resemblance to X.
