A Short History of Compound Words Derived from “Kawaii”

Abstract

The Japanese word “kawaii,” which roughly means cute, lovely, and adorable in English, is ubiquitous in Japan. It is used not only as a stand-alone adjective but also as various compound adjectives, which often combine conflicting elements, such as “kimo-kawaii” (creepy-cute) and “dasa-kawaii” (uncool-cute). In this study, we looked up newspaper article databases to investigate when the compound words derived from “kawaii” first appeared in the literature and how they have evolved. Until the late 1970s, the word "kawaii" had been mainly used to describe vulnerable, innocent beings and things, such as children, animals, and fancy goods. During the 1980s, however, the word’s scope rapidly expanded to encompass even the negative, undesirable aspects of beings and things. In the late 1990s, compound words such as “kimo-kawaii” and “dasa-kawaii” appeared in newspapers. Since approximately 2005, the variety of compound words has increased to include categorizations of women’s fashion and appearance styles, such as “otona-kawaii” (adult-cute) and “ero-kawaii” (sexy-cute). A survey on the frequency of experiencing the feelings expressed in various “kawaii” compound words found that these compound words can be organized along two axes, pleasant–unpleasant and external–internal, and can be divided into three groups: external kawaii, internal kawaii, and kawaii with unpleasant elements.