っぽい

っぽい is a highly productive suffix meaning "-ish," "-like," or "tending toward." It creates i-adjectives from nouns, verb stems, and adjective stems.

Attachment patterns

• Noun + っぽい: 子供(こども)っぽい (childish), 大人(おとな)っぽい (mature/adult-like)
• Verb stem + っぽい: 忘(わす)れっぽい (forgetful), 飽(あ)きっぽい (easily bored)
• Adjective stem + っぽい: 安(やす)っぽい (cheap-looking), 白(しろ)っぽい (whitish)

Usage

With nouns, っぽい often implies a slightly negative or superficial resemblance — 子供(こども)っぽい suggests "childish" rather than genuinely childlike. With colors, it simply means "-ish": 青(あお)っぽい (bluish).

Conjugation

Behaves as an i-adjective:

• っぽくない (negative)
• っぽかった (past)
• っぽく (adverbial)

Similar suffixes

• 〜らしい: befitting, typical of (more positive: 男(おとこ)らしい = manly)
• 〜みたい: looks like, resembles (more neutral)
• 〜的(てき): -like, -esque (formal: 子供(こども)的(てき))