peng
adj.adj. very attractive or high quality. You use this to describe someone who looks great or food that tastes delicious.
adj. denoting high aesthetic appeal or exceptional quality. Chiefly used in Multicultural London English (MLE) to describe physical attractiveness or palatable food.
That meal was absolutely peng.
He saw a peng girl at the bus stop and wanted to say hello.
While older generations might use 'stunning' or 'exquisite', younger Londoners often opt for peng to describe anything from a designer jacket to a home-cooked dinner.
From romanizations of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 鵬 /鹏 (péng).
From Hokkien 冰 (peng, “ice”).
Etymology unknown, attested in the UK c. 2000. Documented possibilities include: * From Jamaican Creole kushempeng (“high-quality marijuana”). * From a clipping of penguin (“flightless sea bird”), deemed quintessentially cute. * From Cantonese 又平又靚 /又平又靓 (jau⁶ peng⁴ jau⁶ leng³, “cheap and also good quality”), see also 平靚正 /平靓正 (peng⁴ leng³ zeng³, “low cost, high quality”), often heard from hawkers in major Chinatowns.
Typically used predicatively after a linking verb like 'be' or 'look'.
The pengly dressed man.The peng dressed man.As a slang term, it does not follow standard adverbial suffix rules; it is used as an adjective or an intensifier in its base form.