Word.ws English Dictionary

China bug

China bug noun: a fresh off the boat Chinese-American immigrant.

Noun

China bug (plural China bugs)

  1. (US, ethnic, historical, slur) A fresh off the boat Chinese-American immigrant.
    • The ABCs called us FOBs—Fresh Off the Boat—or China Bugs. Even the American-born Chinese referred to us as ‘Chinese’—as though they were not.1977, Joe Fong, quotee, Unemployment and Crime: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-fifth Congress, First and Second Sessions...

Forms of China bug

pluralChina bugs

Questions about China bug

What does China bug mean?
China bug means a fresh off the boat Chinese-American immigrant.
What part of speech is China bug?
China bug is a noun.
What is the plural of China bug?
The plural of China bug is China bugs.

Words near China bug in the dictionary

  1. China bean
  2. China beans
  3. china blue
  4. china blues
  5. China Buckeer
  6. China bug
  7. China bugs
  8. china cabinet
  9. china cabinets
  10. China cap
  11. China caps

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: China bug (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “China bug.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/china_bug. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.