Learn Romanian › măi
măi
hey /ˈməj/
particle#2462 most common
Also: man, well now, gosh
Example sentences
Măi, ce frumos e azi!
Hey, how beautiful it is today!
Măi Ioane, vino aici!
Hey Ioan, come here!
Măi, nu te mai grăbi atât!
Hey, stop rushing so much!
Măi, frate, nu știi ce s-a întâmplat ieri?
Man, brother, don't you know what happened yesterday?
Măi, măi, ce vremuri am mai apucat!
Well, well, what times I have lived to see!
Măi omule, lasă-mă în pace cu prostiile astea, că nu mai am răbdare!
Man, leave me alone with this nonsense, because I have no patience left!
Word family
măhey (curter, more familiar or rough variant, used mostly toward men)
băhey/dude (rougher address particle, historically tied to "băiat", boy)brehey/man (regional Balkan-origin address particle, common in southern Romania)
haicome on (particle urging action, different function but same informal register)Etymology
Romanian dictionaries list "măi" as a word of expressive origin, meaning it arose as a native exclamatory sound rather than as a borrowing from Latin or a neighboring language. No secure earlier source has been established, so its history stops at Romanian itself. It belongs to a small class of short, one-syllable Romanian address particles that seem to have formed the same way, from the sound of a spoken call rather than from a traceable root.
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Every word here is a full Polylex card with native audio and spaced repetition, so 4,027 words actually move into long-term memory.
Start free