心当たり

What it means

心当たり means having knowledge or awareness about a person or matter, often implying memory, recognition, or a usable basis for a response.

Main meanings

• awareness or recollection about a person, event, or matter; a sense that something is familiar
• a subtle impression that something is true or plausible based on partial information
• an intuition about what happened or what is being referred to

How to use it

• Used with ある or ない to express that you have or do not have knowledge, memory, or awareness about something
• The polite form is 心当たりがございます / 心当たりがありません (kokoroatari ga gozaimasu / arimasen) for formal contexts
• Common in casual conversations, journalism, and everyday speech to explain memory or likelihood