牛逼

What does 牛逼 mean?

牛逼 (also 牛B, NB, or simply 牛) is the Swiss Army knife of Chinese praise: a sick play, a great game, a clever solution, even a good meal. It runs from sincere awe among friends to dry irony — “牛逼” typed slowly after your teammate walks into the enemy fountain means the opposite. Written forms like NB or 牛 exist because the original is mildly vulgar, like dropping an f-bomb as a compliment. Softer variants include 牛牛 and the punny 流弊, while its mirror image 牛马 describes people worked like beasts, not gods.

Where does 牛逼 come from?

The standard etymology traces 牛逼 to the idiom 吹牛皮 — “blowing up a cowhide” — i.e. bragging. In Qing-era folk tales, boastful men claimed they could cross a river floating on a blown-up cowhide, so cowhides became shorthand for empty boasting; somewhere along the way the meaning flipped from “braggart” to “genuinely impressive.” By the early BBS and chatroom era of the 2000s it had settled into the default compliment of Chinese gaming, and it followed Chinese players onto international servers, where foreigners mostly learn it within their first week in a CN-heavy lobby.

How to use 牛逼

• 这个操作太牛逼了！
  Zhège cāozuò tài niúbī le!
  That play was absolutely insane!
• 他牛逼就牛逼在意识好。
  Tā niúbī jiù niúbī zài yìshi hǎo.
  His genius is his game sense, plain and simple.