Chinese Internet buzzword which means “cool,” “awesome” or “exciting.” Literally, “giving power.”
The Shanghai Daily reported that a Chinese neologism,“geili,” which means, “cool,” “awesome” or “exciting,” had been granted the “official seal of approval”by appearing in The People’s Daily – the official paper of the Communist Party:
“Geili” is created from two Chinese characters “gei” and “li.” Literally, it means “giving power,” but is now widely accepted as an adjective describing something that’s “cool.”
A test of a Chinese jargon word’s trendiness is if users translate it into a foreign language, according to its pronunciation. “Geili” has been transformed into the English-sounding “gelivable,” and “ungelivable,” and the French “très guélile.”
But it was the word’s antonym “bugeili” – meaning dull or boring – that first grabbed wider public attention after it appeared online in May in an episode of a Chinese-dubbed Japanese comic animation.