吹牛
chuī niú · HSK 7
to talk big
🐂💨 blow + cow — literally blowing up a cow with hot air
Ancient herdsmen would inflate cow-hide rafts by blowing into them. Claiming you could blow up an entire cow meant you were full of hot air — a braggart. So 吹 (blow) + 牛 (cow) = to brag.
吹 — mouth 口 + lack/yawn 欠
吹 is a semantic compound. 口 (mouth) shows the action involves the mouth, while 欠 depicts a person with an open mouth exhaling or yawning. Together they vividly suggest blowing air out, the core meaning 'to blow.'
牛 — pictograph of an ox head with horns
牛 is a pictograph that originally depicted the head of an ox or cow, with the top strokes representing the curved horns and the vertical line the face. Early oracle bone forms show the horns clearly. The meaning has remained stable for over three thousand years: cattle, ox, or cow.