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What does 糗大 (qiǔdà) mean in the following phrase?

那才真的糗大了。

From context, I think it ought to mean something like "that would really be terrible" or "that would be far worse," but I can't find a source to confirm my hunch. 糗大 isn't in my dictionary, and MDBG lists the translation as "hoax," which doesn't seem right in this context.

Any ideas?

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  • I inserted Pinyin, but please double check it to see if it's correct.
    – Alenanno
    Jan 10, 2012 at 15:35
  • @Alenanno: the pinyin is correct, but I don't believe it's necessary here. See my post in meta for my views on the subject.
    – Alf
    Jan 10, 2012 at 15:48
  • Why not? I didn't know the reading of "才真" and "糗", for example, so I'd say it's necessary. At least now other users don't need to look up the dictionary like I did.
    – Alenanno
    Jan 10, 2012 at 15:54
  • @Alenanno: I put the reading of 糗 in both the title and the question itself, so that's a non issue. It's fine if you don't know the characters "才" and "真", but according to this list they are among the 300 most common characters in Chinese. I don't mean any disrespect, but glossing these characters would only be necessary for total beginners who would probably get more benefit from looking them up in the dictionary anyway.
    – Alf
    Jan 10, 2012 at 15:59
  • I removed the Pinyin, maybe you gave me a sort of idea... Thanks for the list. Please, come to the chat, otherwise this comment area will become a mess eheh.
    – Alenanno
    Jan 10, 2012 at 16:04

6 Answers 6

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Well that was easy: I should have done a better web search before posting. The answer can be found here:

糗大了，为俗语。为：出丑的意思。（事情搞砸了，出丑了）
[糗大了 is a colloquial saying meaning "to make a fool of oneself."]

If anyone knows the origin of this phrase, I'd be glad to hear it.

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  • Perhaps you could delete your question and post a new question asking the origin of 糗大 (which would be interesting to know, in my opinion). In the question you could also define the meaning of 糗大 so that beginners will be benefited by reading your question as well. Just my suggestion.
    – Bjorn
    Jan 10, 2012 at 16:17
  • @Bjorn There's no need to delete this one, he can simply post a new question.
    – Alenanno
    Jan 10, 2012 at 18:05
  • @Alenanno - No absolute need but if the OP does make a new post that already includes the definition of 糗大 it could help to keep this site tidy as this post could then potentially become a partial duplicate post. Of course it remains up to the OP as we are still in the beta stage now.
    – Bjorn
    Jan 10, 2012 at 18:21
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I'm Chinese and 糗大了 has a southern (Southern China) accent to it to my ears...also it's made of 米 (left part which means rice) and 臭 (right part which means stinky), so maybe the origin is from stinky rice? I didn't research but thought about sharing just for fun.

EDIT: as in somebody accidentally ate spoiled rice and made a fool out of himself.

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  • Your second edit could be written as it's own question. You can get pinyin by pasting characters into Google translate or using this tool mentioned in meta: meta.chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22/pinyin-tone-marks
    – going
    Jan 10, 2012 at 22:51
  • Sorry but I had to down-vote. Your post isn't very useful as is: you basically guessed an etymology, but this guess isn't even based on a research, as you admit yourself.
    – Alenanno
    Jan 10, 2012 at 22:56
  • don't be sorry - i try to have people laugh (and hopefully learn) at my expense and hopefully at least you laughed.
    – Laguna
    Jan 11, 2012 at 2:34
  • I agree with @Alenanno, but I also found the information regarding the words southern flavor interesting. Also, Lagoona, in the only modern dictionary entry I found the meaning was given as "（方）饭或面食成块状或糊状". Not exactly stinky rice, but not too far away from that idea either.
    – Alf
    Jan 11, 2012 at 5:07
  • @Lagoona I'd be happy to remove my down-vote if you could back up your guess by something more. Are you sure there isn't nothing on the internet that can provide some reference? :)
    – Alenanno
    Jan 11, 2012 at 9:29
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That's simple:

糗大了 == lose one's face very much

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It means 'Something really rally bad happens'.

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I think it means very similar to embarrassing.

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You may read http://baike.baidu.com/view/3603374.htm, it's kind of comprehensive.

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