五年ぶり、ぶり返す、。。。What does ぶり mean?


Where does the ぶり in 五年ぶり (Five years ago?) and ぶり返す come from, does it have a
kanji, and what does it mean?




### Spelling

In reply to istrasci's final comment, the _buri_ in _burikaesu_ is the same 振る
as _furu_ , and can be spelled in kanji as 振り返す. That said, the _buri_ is more
often spelled in kana to make the voiced reading explicit.

### Phonology

Changing an _h-_ or _f-_ on the front to the voiced _b-_ variant is common in
the latter element of compounds (see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku>),
explaining why _-fur-_ changes to _-bur-_ in compounds.

When the _fur-_ is in word-initial position, the shift to voicing can imply
some kind of pejorative meaning, as noted by a number of linguists. From
Laurence Labrune's [_The Phonology of
Japanese_](http://books.google.com/books?id=ix9r6CbEl6IC) (2012), p.102:

> The voiced obstruents which appear word-initially in Yamato words come from
> the following sources. First, one finds a number of cases which result from
> secondary voicing of an originally unvoiced obstruent, whose phono-pragmatic
> function is to introduce a pejorative or expressive connotation.

### Semantics (Meaning)

振る _furu_ is ultimately cognate with the _furu_ in classical _furuu_ , modern
震{ふる}える "tremble, shake, vibrate, quake". The _furu_ on its own can mean
"wave, shake", but it also has a range of other meanings, a number of which
imply "the movement of a thing as a whole". That underlying sense might be
where derived term 振り _furi_ came to include meanings such as "likeness; kind;
one's appearance, style, or behavior".

_-Buri_ as the latter element in compounds derives from this _furi_ , and can
be found in words like 身振{みぶ}り "body language, how one moves, appearance", or
女振{おんなぶ}り "a woman's face or appearance".

When appended to a time-related noun or phrase, _-buri_ again carries stronger
connotations of "whole, entire", in terms of "the _whole_ XX amount of time
has passed". 三週間ぶり would mean "it's been three whole weeks [since ...]". 久しい
literally means "eternal; a very long time." 久しぶり is thus often an
exaggeration, similar to English "it's been forever!" even though the speaker
and listener might have seen each other recently.

For the _buri_ in _burikaesu_ , the meanings given for this verb are generally
negative, suggesting that the voicing is indeed pejorative. Whereas
_furikaesu_ can mean simply "to turn something back", _burikaesu_ means "to
get worse again, as said of a previously improving situation."

