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えぐい egui
Insane. Brutal.
What does egui mean?
Once it meant harsh or gross. Young people now use it for anything extreme: a hill, a skill, a price tag.
Example
この坂、えぐい。
This hill is brutal.
Vibe
Who you can say this to, and how it lands.
Friends only Casual. Natural with friends, out of place at work or with strangers.
The story behind egui
Egui started on the tongue, literally. It described an unpleasant astringency, the harshness in undercooked bamboo shoots or bitter greens, the taste that scratches the back of your throat. From there it spread to anything unpleasantly intense: a gruesome scene, a cruel remark, a business practice with no shame in it.
Younger speakers then quietly removed the negativity and kept the intensity. Now a hill is egui, a guitar solo is egui, a price tag is egui, and so is a friend's ability to sleep anywhere. Context and tone carry the meaning entirely. It is the same journey yabai made, running a couple of decades behind.
Get egui in your pocket
えぐい is one of 308 words in YABAI, a Japanese culture snack for Android. Every word comes with its meaning, an example sentence, a vibe check and a story like the one above — in 13 languages, read aloud by your device. Paid app: no ads, no sign-up, no subscription.
