gyūjiru lit. ‘to ox-ear (someone), from “to hold the ox’s ear”’
Japanese idiom, everyday. To have someone so charmed or devoted that they’ll do whatever you want.
Draft Not yet checked by a native Japanese speaker.
How do people use 牛耳る
?
A normal verb you can conjugate like any other: 牛耳っている (is running the show), 牛耳られている (is being bossed around). It’s mostly said about whoever really pulls the strings in a party, a company or a club, as in 党内を牛耳る (to run the party from the inside), and it sounds critical. You can also use it about one person dominating another, as in the Tatoeba sentence below.
Also said 牛耳を執る, 牛耳を握る
牛耳る
in real sentences
-
彼女は彼を牛耳っている。
Kanojo wa kare o gyūjitte iru.
She has him under her thumb.
Tatoeba, sentence by bunbuku, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does 牛耳る
come from?
This one has a written source. In ancient China, lords who swore an alliance cut the ear of a sacrificed ox and sipped its blood, and holding the ear marked who led the pact; the Zuo zhuan tells of quarrels over who would get to hold it. Japanese borrowed the phrase as 牛耳を執る (“to hold the ox’s ear”) and later squeezed it into the verb 牛耳る, whose first example in Nihon Kokugo Daijiten is from 1914. The encyclopedia Nipponica notes that the old texts disagree on whether the leader or a junior held the ear.
Mistakes learners make with 牛耳る
Conjugating it as an ichidan verb (牛耳て, 牛耳た). It’s a godan verb: 牛耳って, 牛耳った, 牛耳らない. Japanese Wiktionary notes that these ichidan forms have been turning up in recent years, but the dictionaries still list it as godan.
Other Japanese idioms like 牛耳る
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?
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