Do you find yourself wandering over to the fridge while in quarantine even when youre not all that hungry? Have you been leaning into your favorite comfort foods a little more than usual lately? Sounds like you have lonely mouth.

For those unfamiliar, kuchisabishii is a uniquely Japanese word that literally means lonely mouth or longing to have or put something in ones mouth.

People use this word a lot to mean eating when bored or sometimes, stress eating, said Kevin Marx, a language instructor in Japan and the author of Speak Japanese in 90 Days.

For instance, my go-to snack is popcorn so lately Ive been eating a lot of that, Marx said. I might say (korona no sei de saikin kuchisabishii), which means because of COVID , Im stress eating recently.

Given how expansive Japanese snack food game is Kit Kat bars in hundreds of flavors, Pringles offered in varieties like fried chicken and squid , the list goes on and on its no wonder a word like this gets tossed around so often.

How do you say it in English? Koo-chi-sa-bi-sh, according to Vanessa Villalobos, a Japanese instructor in England who runs the site JapaneseLondon.com .

While theres no true equivalent to the word in English, Villalobos said peckish might be the closest fit. (Youre not starving, but hungry-ish enough that youll poke around the contents of your cupboard, like some peckish Hot Cheeto-craving bird.)

Kuchisabishii is similar to peckish in that its much more about the actual action, than the feeling of hunger, she said. However, kuchisabishii can also be applied to wanting to have a cigarette when stressed, for consolation.

Villalobos said her own mouth felt lonely (aww) as recently as last week. Her craving? A particular brand of chewing gum that, of course, she had run out of at home.

I went to the corner shop and bought some watermelon chewing gum for my lonesome mouth, she said. It helped!

Described that way, its easy to imagine your mouth as Pac-Man on the hunt for blinking pellets, looking for anything and everything to keep it sated.

Thats actually how my husband describes me looking for something in the kitchen! Villalobos joked. Im like Pac-Man: open mouth, cruising around the corners, seeking snack pellets. Pass the power cookies, kuchisabishii desu! (Desu means it is in Japanese and is often used with an adjective to form a full, short sentence, as pronouns are most often omitted, Villalobobos said.)

Shek Matz, an English teacher in Japan who runs a popular YouTube channel about Japanese culture and language , explained why the phrase is particularly popular among those trying to quit smoking.

Ive never been a smoker, but they say because theres nothing there in the spot that used to hold the cigarette, they feel lonely in their mouths, she said. Its almost like a baby wanting a pacifier when trying to wean.

Theres often a sense of comfort associated with the word, Matz said

Elena Yoo , a Japanese teacher at Hawaii Baptist Academy in Honolulu, said people might hear the phrase while enjoying kaiseki ryori, a fancy, traditional Japanese multi-course, sit-down meal.

Your chef may say something like, Here is some pre-appetizer dish to satisfy your kuchisabishii feeling, and may serve you something very small, she said. That would be a dish to get your appetite going instead of filling in your hunger.

Its a perfect use of the kuchisabishii, actually, she said, because you have the expectation of eventually consuming all the courses of traditional Japanese cuisine and satisfying your cravings.