だらけ — Covered All Over
Expresses that something is full of or covered with a (usually unpleasant) thing — mud, blood, dust, mistakes, debt. It conveys a messy, excessive, negative impression, and attaches directly to nouns.
Structure
[Noun] + だらけ
Examples
子供が泥だらけになって帰ってきた。
Kodomo ga doro darake ni natte kaette kita.
The kid came home covered in mud.
Noun 泥 + だらけ describes being completely covered with mud.
この作文は間違いだらけだ。
Kono sakubun wa machigai darake da.
This essay is full of mistakes.
Noun 間違い + だらけ stresses an excessive, negative number of errors.
部屋がゴミだらけで、足の踏み場もない。
Heya ga gomi darake de, ashi no fumiba mo nai.
The room is so full of trash there's no place to step.
Noun ゴミ + だらけ paints the room as overwhelmed by trash.
• Almost always negative — for a plain 'full of', use 〜でいっぱい. • Emphasizes surface coverage or overwhelming quantity, not neat abundance. • Register: neutral/colloquial; very common in speech.
Commonly confused with
The JLPT rarely asks whether you recognise a pattern — it asks which of several similar patterns fits. These are the ones だらけ is tested against.
vs まみれ
まみれ is limited to physically sticking substances (泥・血・汗); だらけ covers those plus abstract things like 間違い or 借金.
vs でいっぱい／が多い
〜でいっぱい／〜が多い are neutral ways to say 'full of / many', while だらけ adds a distinctly negative, messy, excessive tone.
More expressions
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