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Egui: One Japanese Word’s Journey from “Awful” to “Awesome!”
“Egui” in Japanese used to have a thoroughly negative meaning. Not anymore. Here’s when — and why — that changed.
By Jay Allen
Language is wonderful. As the constantly evolving product of the minds of millions or billions of people, there’s no way to predict when — and how — it’s going to change.
Japanese has undergone some titanic shifts — from the birth of the kana syllabaries to the shift in the literary world from kobun to the spoken vernacular. And it continues to undergo far more gradual shifts in meaning and usage.
As an example, we need look no further than what the youth of Japan have done to the word egui (エグい).
Young people agree: it’s cool to be egui
Originally, egui (えぐい) meant “harsh” or “astringent”. More particularly, it referred to anything that produced a harsh reaction or stimulus to your throat when eaten or swallowed. The expression comes from the verb えぐる, “to perturb”, with 喉をえぐる (nodo o eguru; make one’s throat hurt) being a…
