First opened Sunday, July 17, 2011
砂利
じゃり
- flat (heiban)
How to read it: a line over a kana means the voice is high there, and ↓ marks where it drops. A kana with no line is low. With no ↓ the pitch stays high to the end and does not drop even on a following particle (が, は).
gravel, ballast, pebbles
Jari may be a shift from the sazare of 細石 (sazareishi, “gravel, pebble”), but jari is cited to 1619 and zari only to 1677.
Taken apart
Select a part to see every word so far that is taken apart with it.
In a sentence
We don't have the data for this section. The pinned Tatoeba export has no sentence with a translation that uses this word and passes our filter.
What Wiktionary says
Quoted line by line from Wiktionary's Etymology section for this reading, taken from one dated dump so it can't change underneath us. Nothing below is paraphrased.
Not settled
Wiktionary itself hedges on part of this word's origin — those lines are marked below.
- Hedged“Listed in one source as possibly a shift from the sazare portion of 細石 (sazareishi, “gravel, pebble”, literally “small + stone”).”
- “* /sazare/ → */zare/ → /zari/ → /d͡ʑari/”
- “However, the first attestation of the zari form is not until 1677, while the jari form is first cited to 1619.”
- “The child sense originates as a jargon term at places such as a theatre, initially in reference to child visitors.”
Source: Wiktionary: 砂利 (dump of 2026-09-02), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Reading, meaning and part of speech from JMdict, and kanji readings from KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG).
Other readings of 砂利 on the same Wiktionary page
These describe other words written the same way, not じゃり. They are quoted for context: the parts, layer and processes of this word are not taken from them.
ざり
- “Appears to be a shift from the jari reading.”
- “* /d͡ʑari/ → /zari/”
What the labels mean
- 漢語 Sino-Japanese
- Words built from Chinese-derived morphemes — borrowed from Chinese or coined in Japan out of Chinese parts — read with on'yomi.
- Compound
- Two or more words or stems joined into one.
- Rendaku
- The first sound of the second part voices when two native words join (kami → -gami).
- Sound change
- The pronunciation shifted over the centuries.