やばい (yabai)

What it means

1. 1.

   Originally: dangerous, dodgy, about to go badly wrong. Still used this way — やばい、遅刻する is 'damn, I'm going to be late'.

2. 2.

   Among younger speakers, an all-purpose intensifier with no fixed polarity: amazing, terrible, overwhelming, too much. Context and tone carry the entire meaning, and older listeners genuinely cannot always tell which one is meant.

Examples with translations

• やばい、財布忘れた。

  Oh no, I've left my wallet behind.

  Note: The original sense: something has gone wrong.

• このラーメンやばくない？

  This ramen is unbelievable, right?

  Note: The newer sense. Said of something excellent, with no negative reading at all.

Where it comes from

From Edo-period thieves' cant, where 厄場 (yaba) referred to a guardhouse or lock-up — somewhere you did not want to end up. It stayed criminal slang into the twentieth century, entered general youth speech in the 1980s meaning 'risky', and flipped to include positive uses in the 1990s. The flip is the single most discussed change in modern Japanese slang.

First attested: 18th century in its criminal sense

Other forms

Romanised as:

yabai

Spellings and variants:

ヤバい, ヤバッ, やべー