Darwin's theory of evolution, which had profound impact on China in almost every aspect in the past century, is known in Chinese as jinhualun, a loanword from Meiji Japan. The theory was also known as tianyanlun, a term coined by Yan Fu, the prominent translator of classic writings of Western thoughts and social sciences. Yan was one of the most influential introducers of foreign new thoughts at the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, a time that witnessed the dramatic struggle between tianyan and jinhua to become the most popular translation of “evolution.” Finally jinhua was the fittest survivor that won the contest. The competition reflected not only the trend of the development of modern Chinese lexicon, but also the transformation of Chinese society of that period. This article examines the struggle between the two translated terms from various perspectives, taking into consideration problems concerning parts of speech and lexical meanings of the words in question, the issue of the difference between “refined” and “vulgar” words, the role of Liang Qichao as the advocate and propagandist of new learnings from the West, and the social background of the time in order to explain the triumph of jinhua as the most popular translation of “evolution.”