Welcome to the room of interesting trivia! vol.7

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Welcome to the room of interesting trivia!

Today’s theme is ギザギザ[giza giza](in Katakana, ぎざぎざ in Hiragana).

It is classified as Gitaigo (mimetic word) and it means jagged.

What do you think the origin of the Gitaigo is historically?

The answer is “gather[ギャザー]” in English.
For example “gathered” skirt is made by cloth folded.

One day when Japanese coins came to be made, there was a desire to put groove edge on the coins. But it was hard to explain it because there was no word for it. So, it is said that using the word, ギャザー, people gradually said the condition which is jagged as “ギャザ” then it transformed to “ギザギザ[giza giza]”