DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

牛腩

Mandarin · pinyin niú nǎn

brisket (esp. Cantonese)
belly beef
spongy meat from cow's underside and neighboring ribs
erroneously translated as sirloin

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

牛: niú · cow, ox, bull; Kangxi radical 93; 9th lunar mansion, determinative star β Capricorni (Dabih)
腩: nǎn · (Cant.) fatty meat on a cow's belly; abdomen; to boil meat

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

2–3 · niu2 nan3

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

2character links

Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗

Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

牛腩 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

ngau4 naam5

Cantonese word readings for 牛腩. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

noun

meat from the abdomen of the cow; beef flank or brisket

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack