Opisivanje Ljudi

The word to watch first is plav. It means blue, and it also means blonde — plave oči are blue eyes, plava kosa is fair hair, and nobody in Serbian finds that odd. A fair-haired woman is a plavuša; a fair-haired man, if you must, is a plavušan, though it is rarely said.

The second thing is agreement. Oči is a feminine plural — irregular, from oko — so every adjective in front of it ends in -e:

Two words deserve a warning label. Elegantno popunjen is a joke and a kindness at once — literally elegantly filled out. The neutral word is gojazan, and the everyday one is debeo, which is blunt. Serbian, like every language, has a whole ladder here, and knowing which rung you are standing on matters more than the vocabulary.

And lep works for both sexes: lepa žena, lep muškarac. English splits into beautiful and handsome; Serbian does not bother, and if it wants to be specific about a man it reaches for zgodan — good-looking in the physical, slightly appreciative sense.