Chinese, as a character-based language is obviously tricky to translate into English. But following today’s launch of Microsoft’s new oddly-named search engine, Bing, the world wants to know what it means. We have an answer.

While you might associate “bing” with the Chinese flatbread, or a number of other things that Wired broke down. We were sent perhaps the ultimate translation in the form of a fortune cookie that just happened to pop up after someone’s dinner tonight. One translation for “bing” is apparently “disease.” Some more digging on the web indicates this as well.

So while that is slightly less subtle than Microsoft’s former search property, live, spelling “evil” backwards, it’s another interesting name choice by Microsoft. I’d hope they didn’t plant the bing definition in that fortune cookie as part of its elaborate $100 million marketing campaign — though, come to think of it, that might not be a bad play.

[Thanks Stephen]