胖(pàng) - fat in Mandarin

胖 (pàng) means "fat, plump", the everyday word for carrying extra weight: 他很胖 (tā hěn pàng), "he's fat", built the same way as every other Mandarin size adjective, with 很 (hěn) rather than an English-style "very".

胖 (pàng) is blunter in Mandarin than its English translations suggest. Saying 你胖了 (nǐ pàng le), "you've put on weight", to a friend or relative is common and not automatically rude the way it can feel in English, though it is still safer around strangers to avoid commenting on someone's weight at all. 微胖 (wēipàng, "slightly plump") softens it when you want to hedge.

Its opposite is 瘦 (shòu, "thin, skinny"); together 胖瘦 (pàng shòu) can serve as an abstract noun for "weight, build", the same pattern seen in 高矮 (gāo ǎi, "height") and 宽窄 (kuān zhǎi, "width").