Here you'll find a reference for what the various terms mean through out the 'Verse.  Anything that is in Chinese will be given with a phonetic spelling and an anglicized spelling where possible.

advocate - Lawyer or legal consel. Ai ya, wo mun wan leh - We're in big trouble Anglo-Sino Alliance - The government in charge of... pretty much everything. ap-scan - security device atmo - Abbreviation of the word "atmosphere". Bang-up - great. BEE-jway - Shut up black, the - Outer space or perhaps deep space, beyond planetary orbit. Blackout Zones - Originally areas on Core worlds off the Cortex network, today synonymous with regions where illegal activities, crimes or treason are performed. Blackrock - Term used to describe an uninhabitable planet. Blue Sun - A company that sells food products (and certainly more). Blue Sun logos are seen on food cans and advertisements throughout the 'verse. The motto from their commercials: Live life with Blue Sun. [1] Bowdens Malady - A degenerative affliction of the bone and muscle. Afflicts the settlers of Paradiso in the Georgia System. broadwave - Long-range broadcast sent to all receiving stations Brown Coats - Referring to the "independents" or rebels against the Alliance, likely in reference to their military uniform. bughouse - Slang for "mental health facility". bungers - Expletive. Burnham Quadrant - Furthest edge of civilized space. bushwhack - Ambush. byphodine - A drug which can induce a state of reduced metabolic function. Unexamined, a person under the effects of Byphodine is easily mistaken for a cadaver. Capisson 38 - unreliable make of engine. capture - card-sized video & sound recorder. carrion house (a.k.a. scrap shop) - Outlaws set these facilities up and capture space ships with a high-powered electric "Net". These arrangements are used to immobilize a ship and kill or stun its crew, then strip parts off the ship or simply steal the whole thing. cashy money - payment in hard currency. central authority - Judicial courts of the Alliance. Chur ni-duh - Fuck You Companion - An academy-schooled prostitute practicing legally as part of The Guild, a socially powerful pseudo-religious organization. Companions are highly respected by almost everyone. Their schooling is long and arduous and covers everything from psychology to sword fighting. They can converse with anyone, and make anyone utterly at ease, from a dirt poor farmer to a planetary president. They live by the Guild code and only engage in transactions with customers of their choice. core - Refers to any major city/planet in the Alliance. Can also refer to a ship's reactor core. Cortex - The visual/textual Interconnected Networks of the 26th century. credit - A type of currency. Alliance-based, with no 'solid' component, and used to the exclusion of all else for legitimate transactions on all core worlds. I.e.: all standard transactions on the Core worlds are electronic in nature -- no one can physically hand you a credit. Per unit, a credit is worth more than any other type of currency (See *platinum*, below.) (See also: Firefly Money) cruiser - Type of Alliance military vessel. A very large, vertically-aligned vessel that resembles nothing so much as a small city in space. cryo - Foreshortening of the word "cryogenic", especially in the context of cryogenic suspension. By the 26th century, cryogenic technology has advanced to the point that suspension can be sustained in a self-contained mobile unit. This makes for an ideal means by which to smuggle living human cargo in a temporary state of suspended metabolic function. Awakening suddenly or prematurely from cryo can result in severe system shock. dedicated source box - The DSL / Personal File Server of the Firefly setting. Delcium - medication used to amplify REM state Dermal Mender - A piece of medical equipment used to repair damage to the dermis, skin, and cartilage, and to reattach limbs or smaller appendages. Presumably it uses molecular nanotechnology to reweave the fibres of the dermis at a molecular level. See "weave". Dong ma? - [Do you] Understand? doxy - Slang, a female lover or mistress, or a sexually promiscuous woman. This term is distinct from the word prostitute, which is a profession, and is more similar to courtesan or concubine. drops - Slang, Drugs. Used in "Heart of Gold." Duh liou mahng - Son of a Bitch encyclopedia - A palm-sized reference work. It can display information in hypertext form. FAHNG-sheen - Don't worry fed squad - A unit of twenty Alliance soldiers. footpad - Pickpocket or thief in the area. G-32 Paxilon Hydrochlorate - Chemical engineered by the Alliance to induce calm in large groups of people. Commonly referred to as "The Pax". First used on Miranda. Side-effect: in .1% (one tenth of one percent) of those exposed, aggressive tendencies are amplified to the point of insanity. ( genseed - A type of genetically engineered crop seed issued to those sent to settle terraformed planets and moons. git - Go away goods - Loot.

Gor'am (not really Chinese) - God Damn gorram - expletive, AKA "god damn", used to express extreme displeasure, anger, or surprise.. Gos se - [Piece of]Shit grapple - Slang, vulgar. "To have sex with." grizwald - A grenade about the size of a battery; responds to pressure. gurtsler - Type of engine used in space ships, considered to be of somewhat shoddy construction. hover-plane - A mode of transport. humped - Expletive (depending on context). Hwoon dahn - Bastard hydrozapam - A particularly valuable pharmaceutical. I.A.V. - Interstellar Alliance Vessel -- standard prefix on all Alliance military craft. (As seen on the IAV Dortmunder in the Serenity Pilot, as well as several others.) ident card - Alliance identification card carrying personal information in electronic format -- useful for scanning purposes. Independents - Political/military party opposed to the Alliance. See also: Brown Coats and the Unification War. isoprobyline - A pharmaceutical used to boost the immune system. Jen dao mei - Just our Luck Jien tah duh guay! - Like Hell! Joo ta ma ya ming - Watch your back Ke yi - Can do kick - Slang. To die. (As in "kick the bucket".) Lao xiong - Old friend medvault - A secure area for the storage of pharmaceuticals. mei mei - Little sister. Used for sister in blood or sister in spirit. From Mandarin Chinese. mule - Four-wheeled all-terrain vehicle used to transport goods and crew. Seats a maximum of two people. Top speed approximately 40 to 50 km/hr. In the movie Serenity, a mule is also a type of hover sled used to transport up to four people plus cargo. Nah may gwon-shee - That's alright then non-progressional evolutionary theory - Possibly a (future) expansion of the Darwinian model of natural selection, possibly a neologism invented by River Tam. Note: this is an actual English word, you can find it in most dictionaries, with the meaning `slut' or `loose woman'. - Oh-two - Oxygen. pescaline "D" - A type of medicine used to treat the degenerative affliction Bowden's Malady. Pasceline is valuable on the black market. The word Pescaline has its origins in Dutch, a language native to Earth-that-was. Pi hua - Bull Shit (nonsense) pipeline - A communications channel. platinum - A type of hard currency, typically used on border worlds and for most clandestine dealings. For the purposes of conversion, a credit (see above) converts to platinum on approximately a 4:1 ratio, and a platinum coin converts to paper scrip (1 "dollar") at approximately 10:1. (1 credit = 4 platinum = 40 bills). (See also: Firefly Money) propoxin - A pharmaceutical. purple belly - An Alliance soldier or officer. (Used in reference to an Alliance Captain in Bushwhacked.) The Alliance's official colors include purple and are used on the abdomen (belly) of Alliance troop body armor. reader - Short for mind reader. Reavers - Space pirates with a twist -- the twist being they're insane, torture their captives, and practice cannibalism and self-mutilation. roller - A weapon used in the war, presumably a tank or some other conveyance moving on treads. ruttin' - Expletive. 'frigging, damn. Context uttered by Jayne: ...who's in ruttin' command here'. rutting - Expletive. Mating or 'to mate'. seeker - A small heat seeking missile used by the Alliance, that gives off a whining sound when acquiring a heat source, which makes the missile detectable. More likely used to take out infantry than anything else due to the size and the explosive yield of the missile. shepherd - Term for a religious minister, preacher, or priest. shiny - Slang. "Good", "great", "neat", "wonderful", etc. shuffle - Slang. To die. ("Shuffle off this mortal coil...") Sky Plex - A space station that has optimized a large portion of it's habitable space for client services such as shopping, entertainment, and so forth. sly - Male and homosexually inclined. (May also apply to women who fancy women.) stevedore - Some one who loads and unloads ships for a living Tele Fonix - Name of a telecommunications system, like AT&T or MCI. terraforming - Means of bestowing a planet or moon with conditions essential to sustain human and nonhuman life. tick - Slang, second (as in, increment of time). Contemporary 20th-21st century slang in British-English speaking countries. triplex - A slang term for a planet side shopping and entertainment megaplex. TYEN shiao-duh - In the name of all that's sacred U-Day - Short for "Unification Day"; the holiday celebrating the Alliance's defeat of the Independents. 'verse - Slang, short for "universe". vitals - Short for vital signs. wave - Audio-visual transmission sent over the Cortex. Full waves (audio and visual) are generally only available within major Alliance systems. Once a ship has left a major system (or is traveling in a system too unimportant to have a Cortex beacon), the send must resort to more primitive means of communication. weave - Medical term, presumably refering to a skin weave. A skin weave is a highly advanced medical procedure that uses nanotechnology in re-knitting the dermal fibres at a molecular level. Such a procedure is to stitches as stitches are to a bandage. woolly - Slang, crazy Zhou ma zhi - Damn it!

Another source of information that may help you is the Old West Writer's Guide to Slang, Phrases, and more.