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ダラダラ daradara
Doing nothing, at length.
What does daradara mean?
Lying around with no aim, or a task that drags on forever. Both senses share the same crime: time passing without any progress.
Example
休みの日、ダラダラしてたら夕方だった。
On my day off I lazed around and suddenly it was evening.
Vibe
Who you can say this to, and how it lands.
Safe to use Fine in ordinary conversation.
The story behind daradara
The original picture is liquid. ダラダラ describes something flowing or dripping without stopping, which is why sweat and blood both take it, and the sense of an unbroken slow trickle is what carried over into time. A meeting that drips onward, an afternoon that leaks away.
Both halves are still in use, and the second half has a sharp edge in working life. ダラダラ残業 names the overtime that happens not because there is work but because nobody has left, a real term in arguments about how Japanese offices spend their evenings. Applied to a Sunday, it is close to a boast. Some days deserve to be spent by dripping.
Get daradara in your pocket
ダラダラ is one of 308 words in YABAI, a Japanese culture snack for Android. Every word comes with its meaning, an example sentence, a vibe check and a story like the one above — in 13 languages, read aloud by your device. Paid app: no ads, no sign-up, no subscription.
