Xujun Eberlein brought a new piece of Mandarin slang to my attention in a post on her blog. 最牛 is used as an adjective that doesn’t seem to have an equivalent in English–Xujun does a great job of trying to explain it uses and potential meanings. 牛 is cow, and can be used as an adjective to describe someone as being good in some way. 最牛, therefore would translate to “most cow.” Though, it seems that the term is being used in a semi-sarcastic sense.

Anyway, 最牛 is a fun new word for those of us still learning Chinese. We’re open to your translations of this word. And we’re also open to any submissions of poetry or prose that somehow incorporate this Chinese word or translation (literal or otherwise).

While you go off and debate it meaning and use, we’ll coin a new English word from this: cowiest. Example: Bill was the cowiest executive at the bank, and was the first to be laid off.

Related posts:

1. Get Over the Hump
2. Old Poetry Books