I think one of my favorite slang words in Romania is marfă (mar-fuh), although I don’t use it very often.

The standard use of the word marfa is as a noun to indicate “cargo” or “manufactured goods” or sometimes “freight”, borrowed directly from a Hungarian word (márha) that means cattle or livestock.

In slang usage however this becomes an adjective and is used to indicate something is “very good” or of “superior quality”, at least according to the dictionary but also has a general connotation of being “cool”.

In this sense, marfa is roughly equivalent to the slang use of the word tare, both meaning something cool, trendy, hot, neat-o or delightful.

Again, as with most slang nouns used as adjectives, there is no declination or modification of gender or number.

There is a lesser-used slang connotation of this word to indicate black market, illicit or illegal items, similar to the English expression “the goods”, as in “did you bring the goods?”.

AND NOW YOU KNOW!