burikko
burikko noun: an adult woman who behaves childishly, especially a Japanese woman or a woman involved with Japanese culture.
Noun
burikko (usually uncountable, plural burikko)
- An adult woman who behaves childishly, especially a Japanese woman or a woman involved with Japanese culture.
- While boy-crazy American girls labor at sophistication, Japanese women of marriageable age tend to act like girls, and are popularly called burikko—“pretending kids.”1989, Leila Philip, The Road through Miyama, →ISBN
- A burikko is a grown woman who acts like a child. She may be sexually active, but she feigns innocence.1990, Jennie Lo, Office Ladies, Factory Women: Life and Work at a Japanese Company, page 42
- A (Japanese) style or fashion associated with excessive or false cuteness.
- Girls laciness is not in Japan Madonna-style lace but rather First Communion lace—but with a perky falseness sometimes called burikko, or false-innocent.1994, Merry White, The Material Child: Coming of Age in Japan and America, page 129
Forms of burikko
| plural | burikko |
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Origin of burikko
From Japanese ぶりっ子 (burikko).
Questions about burikko
- What does burikko mean?
- Burikko means an adult woman who behaves childishly, especially a Japanese woman or a woman involved with Japanese culture.
- What part of speech is burikko?
- Burikko is a noun.
- What is the plural of burikko?
- The plural of burikko is burikko.
Words near burikko in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: burikko (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “burikko.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/burikko. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.