038 / 308
ドキドキ dokidoki
Heart going thump-thump.
What does dokidoki mean?
The sound of a heartbeat you can feel: before an interview, before a confession, before opening exam results. Nerves and butterflies share one word.
Example
面接の前でドキドキしてきた。
My heart is pounding before the interview.
Vibe
Who you can say this to, and how it lands.
Safe to use Fine in ordinary conversation.
The story behind dokidoki
This is a heartbeat you can hear from the inside, and Japanese lets you report it directly. Doki doki covers the interview corridor, the confession, the envelope with results in it. Fear and infatuation share the word because the body genuinely does not distinguish them, which is either poetic or medically inconvenient.
Mimetics like this earn their keep in clinics. Ask about pain here and patients answer in sound words: throbbing is zukizuki, a sharp twisting ache is kirikiri, and doctors listen to the choice as diagnostic information. Meanwhile romance manga and dating games have run on dokidoki for decades, to the point that seeing it on a cover tells you the genre before the title does.
Get dokidoki in your pocket
ドキドキ 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.
