Diu (Cantonese)


Diu is a common profanity in Cantonese. It can be regarded as the Cantonese equivalent of the English fuck. Its Mandarin cognate,, is also used by young people in Taiwan to mean "cool".

In classic Chinese

Diu is a word in the Cantonese language. It appears frequently in the text of the classic novel Water Margin, and is written as . It is used as an emphatic adjective with a function similar to the English "fucking", "bloody" or "god damned". For example,

武松指著蔣門神，說道：「休言你這廝鳥蠢漢！景陽岡上那隻大蟲，也只三拳兩腳，我兀自打死了！量你這個直得甚麼！快交割還他！但遲了些個，再是一頓，便一發結果了你廝！」Water Margin, Chp. 29

Diu means primarily the penis. It is written as 屌 when used in this sense, but usually as 鳥 when used as an emphatic adjective. For example,

木寸、馬户、尸巾，你道我是個「村驢屌」？Romance of the Western Chamber, Act 5, Scene 3

屌 has its female equivalent in the traditional Chinese written language. In the Yuan Dynasty operas, the word, meaning penis, is sometimes written as. For example,

我見了些覓前程俏女娘，見了些鐵心腸男子漢，便一生里孤眠，我也直甚頹！Jiu Fengchen, Act 1

In Hong Kong and Macau

The written form ? is mainly seen in Hong Kong, for example, on graffiti. In Cantonese, it is used as a transitive verb meaning to copulate. In a manner similar to the English word fuck, it is also used to express dismay, disgrace, disapproval and so on. For example, someone may shout "diu lei!" at somebody when he or she finds that other person annoying.
"Diu Lei Lo Mo!" is a highly offensive profanity in Cantonese when directed against a specific person instead of used as a general exclamation. In contrast to the English phrase "fuck your mother", which indicates that the person being attacked commits sexual acts with his own mother, the Cantonese expression has the implied meaning of "I fuck your mother".
The form ? is absent in the Big-5 character set on computers. The Government of Hong Kong has extended Unicode and the Big-5 character set with the Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set, which includes Chinese characters only used in Cantonese, including the Five Great Profanities. The government explained that the reason for these characters being included is to allow for the Hong Kong Police to record criminal suspects' statements. Consequently, these characters are now also in Unicode.
In English, "damn" gives birth to its euphemism "darn"; similarly in Cantonese, especially Hong Kong Cantonese, diu has yiu, tiu, siu, chiu, biu, and hiu as its euphemisms, which all rhyme with "iu".