"zhing-zhong" meaning in English

See zhing-zhong in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Forms: more zhing-zhong [comparative], most zhing-zhong [superlative]
Etymology: Dates back to the onset of Chinese trade with Zimbabweans at the turn of the 21st century. It stems from the way the Chinese language sounds to a Zimbabwean. Head templates: {{en-adj}} zhing-zhong (comparative more zhing-zhong, superlative most zhing-zhong)
  1. (slang, derogatory, Zimbabwe) Of objects, cheap, Asian and of inferior quality. Tags: Zimbabwe, derogatory, slang
    Sense id: en-zhing-zhong-en-adj-xKntCmqK Categories (other): Zimbabwe English
  2. (slang, derogatory, Zimbabwe) Of a person, low-quality, unfit for their occupation or station in life. Tags: Zimbabwe, derogatory, slang
    Sense id: en-zhing-zhong-en-adj-Tq0H6V4C Categories (other): Zimbabwe English

Noun

Etymology: Dates back to the onset of Chinese trade with Zimbabweans at the turn of the 21st century. It stems from the way the Chinese language sounds to a Zimbabwean. Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} zhing-zhong (uncountable)
  1. (slang, derogatory, Zimbabwe) Cheap Asian products. Tags: Zimbabwe, derogatory, slang, uncountable Related terms: shanzhai
    Sense id: en-zhing-zhong-en-noun-syv21fV8 Categories (other): Zimbabwe English, English apophonic reduplications, English onomatopoeias Disambiguation of English apophonic reduplications: 27 16 56 Disambiguation of English onomatopoeias: 26 14 59

Download JSON data for zhing-zhong meaning in English (4.4kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Dates back to the onset of Chinese trade with Zimbabweans at the turn of the 21st century. It stems from the way the Chinese language sounds to a Zimbabwean.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more zhing-zhong",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most zhing-zhong",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "zhing-zhong (comparative more zhing-zhong, superlative most zhing-zhong)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Zimbabwe English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2005 July 24, Michael Wines, “From Shoes to Aircraft to Investment, Zimbabwe Pursues a Made-in-China Future”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2018-02-09, Africa",
          "text": "Zimbabweans complain, sometimes bitterly, that their new Chinese buses break down with alarming regularity and that the Chinese goods that flood stores and roadside stalls are so shoddy as to be worthless. Indeed, they have coined a term for the phenomenon: zhing-zhong.\n\"To call something zhing-zhong means that it is substandard,\" said Eldred Masunugure, the chairman of the political science department at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare. \"The resentment of the Chinese is not only widespread; it's deeply rooted. It's affecting even other Chinese-looking people, like the Japanese.\"\nProfessor Masunugure and others say that Harare's few Japanese residents complain of being taunted and called zhing-zhong.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Petina Gappah, “An Elegy for Easterly”, in Jungfrau and Other Short Stories (The Caine Prize for African Writing, 7th Annual Collection), Oxford: New Internationalist Publications Ltd, page 109",
          "text": "On the other side of Mbare, among the zhing-zhong products from China, the shiny clothes spelling out cheerful poverty, the glittery tank-tops and body-stockings imported in striped carrier bags from Dubai, among the Gucchii bags and Prader shoes, […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, C. B. George, The Death of Rex Nhongo, London: Quercus Publishing Ltd, page 23",
          "text": "At a nearby table, a handsome man in shirtsleeves pushed to the elbow raised a hand and began to snap his fingers at the waitress. His watch was heavy on his wrist. It could have been a Rolex or Breitling. It could have been a zhing-zhong knock-off.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of objects, cheap, Asian and of inferior quality."
      ],
      "id": "en-zhing-zhong-en-adj-xKntCmqK",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "cheap",
          "cheap"
        ],
        [
          "Asian",
          "Asian"
        ],
        [
          "inferior",
          "inferior"
        ],
        [
          "quality",
          "quality"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, derogatory, Zimbabwe) Of objects, cheap, Asian and of inferior quality."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Zimbabwe",
        "derogatory",
        "slang"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Zimbabwe English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of a person, low-quality, unfit for their occupation or station in life."
      ],
      "id": "en-zhing-zhong-en-adj-Tq0H6V4C",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "low",
          "low"
        ],
        [
          "quality",
          "quality"
        ],
        [
          "unfit",
          "unfit"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, derogatory, Zimbabwe) Of a person, low-quality, unfit for their occupation or station in life."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Zimbabwe",
        "derogatory",
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Zhing-zhong"
  ],
  "word": "zhing-zhong"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "Dates back to the onset of Chinese trade with Zimbabweans at the turn of the 21st century. It stems from the way the Chinese language sounds to a Zimbabwean.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "zhing-zhong (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Zimbabwe English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "27 16 56",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English apophonic reduplications",
          "parents": [
            "Apophonic reduplications",
            "Reduplications",
            "Terms by etymology"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "26 14 59",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English onomatopoeias",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Cheap Asian products."
      ],
      "id": "en-zhing-zhong-en-noun-syv21fV8",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "Cheap",
          "cheap"
        ],
        [
          "Asian",
          "Asian"
        ],
        [
          "product",
          "product"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, derogatory, Zimbabwe) Cheap Asian products."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "shanzhai"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Zimbabwe",
        "derogatory",
        "slang",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Zhing-zhong"
  ],
  "word": "zhing-zhong"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English adjectives",
    "English apophonic reduplications",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English onomatopoeias",
    "English uncountable nouns"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Dates back to the onset of Chinese trade with Zimbabweans at the turn of the 21st century. It stems from the way the Chinese language sounds to a Zimbabwean.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more zhing-zhong",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most zhing-zhong",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "zhing-zhong (comparative more zhing-zhong, superlative most zhing-zhong)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English slang",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Zimbabwe English"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2005 July 24, Michael Wines, “From Shoes to Aircraft to Investment, Zimbabwe Pursues a Made-in-China Future”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2018-02-09, Africa",
          "text": "Zimbabweans complain, sometimes bitterly, that their new Chinese buses break down with alarming regularity and that the Chinese goods that flood stores and roadside stalls are so shoddy as to be worthless. Indeed, they have coined a term for the phenomenon: zhing-zhong.\n\"To call something zhing-zhong means that it is substandard,\" said Eldred Masunugure, the chairman of the political science department at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare. \"The resentment of the Chinese is not only widespread; it's deeply rooted. It's affecting even other Chinese-looking people, like the Japanese.\"\nProfessor Masunugure and others say that Harare's few Japanese residents complain of being taunted and called zhing-zhong.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Petina Gappah, “An Elegy for Easterly”, in Jungfrau and Other Short Stories (The Caine Prize for African Writing, 7th Annual Collection), Oxford: New Internationalist Publications Ltd, page 109",
          "text": "On the other side of Mbare, among the zhing-zhong products from China, the shiny clothes spelling out cheerful poverty, the glittery tank-tops and body-stockings imported in striped carrier bags from Dubai, among the Gucchii bags and Prader shoes, […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, C. B. George, The Death of Rex Nhongo, London: Quercus Publishing Ltd, page 23",
          "text": "At a nearby table, a handsome man in shirtsleeves pushed to the elbow raised a hand and began to snap his fingers at the waitress. His watch was heavy on his wrist. It could have been a Rolex or Breitling. It could have been a zhing-zhong knock-off.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of objects, cheap, Asian and of inferior quality."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "cheap",
          "cheap"
        ],
        [
          "Asian",
          "Asian"
        ],
        [
          "inferior",
          "inferior"
        ],
        [
          "quality",
          "quality"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, derogatory, Zimbabwe) Of objects, cheap, Asian and of inferior quality."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Zimbabwe",
        "derogatory",
        "slang"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English slang",
        "Zimbabwe English"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of a person, low-quality, unfit for their occupation or station in life."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "low",
          "low"
        ],
        [
          "quality",
          "quality"
        ],
        [
          "unfit",
          "unfit"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, derogatory, Zimbabwe) Of a person, low-quality, unfit for their occupation or station in life."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Zimbabwe",
        "derogatory",
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Zhing-zhong"
  ],
  "word": "zhing-zhong"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English adjectives",
    "English apophonic reduplications",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English onomatopoeias",
    "English uncountable nouns"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Dates back to the onset of Chinese trade with Zimbabweans at the turn of the 21st century. It stems from the way the Chinese language sounds to a Zimbabwean.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "zhing-zhong (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "shanzhai"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English slang",
        "Zimbabwe English"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Cheap Asian products."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "Cheap",
          "cheap"
        ],
        [
          "Asian",
          "Asian"
        ],
        [
          "product",
          "product"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, derogatory, Zimbabwe) Cheap Asian products."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Zimbabwe",
        "derogatory",
        "slang",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Zhing-zhong"
  ],
  "word": "zhing-zhong"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-17 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-01 using wiktextract (0b52755 and 5cb0836). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.