Polish profanity explained

The Polish language, like most others, has swear words and profanity. Some words are not always seen as very insulting, however, there are others that are considered by some greatly offensive and rude. Words that might be considered most derogatory, based on multiple sources,[1] [2] [3] are not necessarily a general and have not been decided upon in a more definite manner.[4]

There are different types of swearing (as coined by Steven Pinker): abusive, cathartic, dysphemistic, emphatic and idiomatic.[5]

The Polish language uses all types of swearing mentioned. Research has shown that "Polish people hear profanity more often in a public space than in a private space".[6] 65% of surveyed adults said they have sworn due to emotions and only 21% claimed they never swore.

The CBOS (Polish: Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej; The Center for Public Opinion Research) has done surveys to examine the use of profanity. In the research report, it was pointed out that information given about the private sector might not be accurate, as it is a protected and idealized space, meaning that the subjects of the survey could be downplaying or changing their answers providing a false report.[7]

Most commonly used vulgarisms

Linguist Jerzy Bralczyk calculated that there are only five basic vulgarisms in Polish. These are "cock" (chuj), "cunt" (pizda), "fuck" (pierdolić, jebać) and "whore/shit/fuck" (kurwa). The rest are combinations of these five, derived words and phraseological relationships. New vulgarisms appear when new word configurations are created or their semantic context changes.[8] The dictionary of real Polish gives four words in 350 configurations, including the word "shit" in 47 functions.[9]

Sex-related obscenities

Vagina

Cipa
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. Literally "pussy". Another form of the word is the diminutive "cipka", which is usually not considered as crude.
    1. An insult towards a female.
    1. A person that is considered incompetent.
    Pizda
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. Like "cipa", only more vulgar. Similar to the English "cunt".
    1. A black eye.

    Penis

    ChujSometimes incorrectly written as "huj".
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. "Dick" or "cock". The diminutive form of the word is "chujek".
    2. A rude person, mostly used towards males.
    3. A disliked male.
    ChujowySometimes incorrectly written as "hujowy".
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. An adjective derived from "chuj", literally meaning "dick-like". "Chujowy" is the masculine form, the feminine form is "chujowa" and the neuter form is "chujowe".
    2. Often used to describe an object (or situation) of a rather deplorable or otherwise undesirable quality, e.g. "Chujowy samochód" meaning "A vehicle that broadly fails in its utility to be of use (breaks down often, looks like crap, etc.)"
    ChujowoSometimes incorrectly written as "hujowo".
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. An adverb derived from "chuj".
    2. Used to describe a bad way of doing something (rarely).
    3. Used to describe a bad state of being.

    To copulate

    Pierdolić się
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. To have sex.
    1. To waste time on something
    1. To be overly cautious with something.[10]
    Jebać
  • Pronunciation: IPA:“To fuck”/have sex with someone. This word has many derivative words as well, and is in fact one of the most versatile words in the Polish language.
    1. To smell bad.

    Examples include:

    Term Meaning Example (PL) Translation
    Odjebać Break off/Screw upCo ty odjebałeś!? What did you do?!
    Rozjebać To break/destroy Rozjebałem samochód na drzewie I wrecked the car driving it into a tree
    Przejebać To screw up/be in trouble On ma przejebane He's in a world of shit
    Wyjebać Throw away Wyjebałem telewizor przez okno I tossed the TV out of the window
    Najebać To beat someone/get wasted Chłopaki się najebali jak żule pod Biedronką The boys got drunk like bums in front of Biedronka
    Zajebać To kill/to steal Gościu zajebał mi gorzałę! Zaraz go zajebię The dude stole my vodka! I'm gonna kill him
    Ujebać Get dirty Ujebałeś się jak świnia! You're dirty like a pig!
    Przyjebać To hit Wkurwił mnie, to mu przyjebałem. He pissed me off so I hit him.
    Pieprzyć
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. “To fuck” or to have sex.
    1. To lie, talk nonsense.
    1. To disregard something or someone as unimportant (similar to the English expression “fuck this”/“fuck you”). In a non-vulgar instance it means to add pepper.
    Pierdolić

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    1. To have sex, “to fuck”.
    1. To regard something as irrelevant, not worth attention.
    1. To lie, talk nonsense.
    Robić loda
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
  • To “give a blowjob”. Literally translates to “do an ice cream / a popsicle”.
    Ruchać
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
  • To have sex with someone, to “fuck someone”.
    Rżnąć
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
  • To have sex or “to fuck”. Also has multiple non-vulgar meanings, e.g. "to saw".
    Wypierdalać
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. To kick someone out.
    1. To get away from somewhere.
    1. To throw something away.[11]

    Insultive racial terms

    Ciemno jak w dupie (u) Murzyna
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
  • Very dark. Literally "as dark as the inside of a black person's ass"
    Skośny
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. An offensive term for an Asian person.
    2. In a non-vulgar context: diagonal.
    Żółtek
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. An offensive term for an Asian person, literally "yellowie".
    2. Pope John Paul II, mockingly referred to as rzułta morda (lit. yellowface)
    Ciapaty
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. An offensive term for a person of a slightly darker skin color but not black, usually Indian subcontinent, people from the Middle East.
    2. Word probably comes from "ćapati", a type of flat bread traditionally made in India and Pakistan.

    LGBT-related insults

    Ciota
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. Period, menstruation.
    2. An insulting way to call a homosexual, usually one behaving in an overly feminine way.[12]
    Cwel
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. A male providing sexual services to homosexual inmates in prison[13]
    2. An insult towards a male.
    Pedał
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
  • Faggot (a gay man). Literally "pedal".

    Insults

    Cipa
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
  • (See above)
    Chuj
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
  • (See above)
    Do dupy
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
  • For something or someone thought no good, useless.
    Dziwka
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. A prostitute, hooker.
    2. An insult towards a female.
    Frajer
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. A naive person.
    2. A loser.
    Matkojebca
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. Same as the English "motherfucker".
    Menda
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. A policeman.
    2. A greedy or clumsy person.
    Męska kurwa
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
  • A male prostitute.
    Skurwiel
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
  • An insult towards a male.
    Skurwysyn
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
  • An insult towards a male. Similar to the English “son of a whore”.
    Suka
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. An insult used towards females. Same as “bitch” in English.
    2. Non-vulgar: a female dog.
    3. A male sexually submissive to another male.
    Świnia
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. A person behaving in a way that is seen as obscene. Same as calling someone a pig in English.
    2. Non-vulgar: a pig.
    Zdzira
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. A female prostitute.
    2. An insult towards a female.

    Discriminatory terms

    Ciota

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    (See above)

    Cwel

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    (See above)

    Pedał

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    1. An insult towards a gay man or a male perceived as gay.
    2. Non-vulgar: a pedal.

    Others

    Dojebać
  • Pronunciation: IPA: 1. To beat someone up, give someone a beating. 2. To add something to something else in high amounts, e.g. pepper to a soup.
    Dopierdalać
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. To beat someone up, give someone a beating.
    2. To talk nonsense.
    Dopieprzać
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. Same as "dopierdalać" but less vulgar.
    Dupa
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. Ass.
    2. A scaredy cat.
    3. Insult towards a man.
    4. A vulgar way to call an attractive woman.
    5. Girlfriend (preferably when discussed in her absence, unless she's a ździra).
    Gówno

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    1. Feces, literally “shit”.
    2. Used as an insult towards a person seen as someone not worthy of attention.
    3. Something useless, worth nothing.
    4. Can also literally mean “nothing”, similar to "jack shit" or "fuck all".
    Japa

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    Used to refer to someone’s face, similar to the English "mug".

    Jasna cholera

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    A word to express frustration. Similar to “holy shit” in English.

    Kiblować[14]

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    1. To be serving a sentence in prison.
    2. To repeat a grade in school.
    Kurwa[15] [16]

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    1. A female prostitute.
    2. An immoral, unethical person.
    3. An expression of frustration, like “fuck!” in English.
    4. A filler like “fucking” in an English sentence, e.g. “I hate this fucking show”.
    Kurestwo
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. A broken object.
    2. A bad tasting dish/drink.
    3. A substance that is unpleasant to touch or smell.
    Kurwiarz
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. A man frequently who frequently engages in sex with prostitutes.
    2. A man cheating on his wife.
    Kurwidołek
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. A brothel.
    2. Any place where prostitutes can frequently be encountered.
    3. The flat of a man who frequently invites multiple women over to have sex with them.
    Mieć nasrane w głowie[17]

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    To behave weirdly, illogically, with no sense.

    Morda w kubeł

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    Used to tell someone to be quiet, to stop talking, to shut up.

    Na odpieprz/odpierdol
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
  • To do something without much care or thought.
    Najebać
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. To be drunk/have had too much to drink.
    2. To add too much of something.
    To beat someone up.Niech to szlag trafi

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    An expletive used to express frustration. Similar to “dammit” or “shit” in English.

    Opierdalać
  • Pronunciation: IPA:
    1. To be lazy.
    2. To quickly peel something.
    3. To perform fellatio.
    Obesrać[18] /obsrać[19]

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    To dirty someone or something with feces.

    Pierdolić

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    1. To have sex, “to fuck”.
    2. To regard something as irrelevant, not worth attention.
    3. To lie, talk nonsense.
    Robić w chuja

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    To fool someone. Literally: ”do in a dick”.

    Samojebka

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    1. To jerk off, to masturbate. Literally: ”self-fucking”.
    2. To take a picture of yourself, to take a selfie.
    Srać

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    1. To defecate, “to (take a) shit”.
    2. To regard something as irrelevant, not worth attention.

    Sometimes it is followed by "taśma" to create the word "srajtaśma". The literal translation is "shit-tape" and it refers to toilet paper.

    Srać w gacie

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    To be very afraid, nervous. Literally "to be shitting your pants".

    Szajs

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    1. Feces, literally “shit”.
    2. Something worthless, of bad quality.

    When the word "papier", meaning paper, is added after it makes "szajspapier". Literally, it means "shitpaper" and is used to refer to toilet paper.

    Szczać

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    To release urine, to pee. Literally: "to piss".

    Walić konia

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    To jerk off, to masturbate. Literally: ”to beat the horse”.

    Wkurwiać

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    To annoy someone or to “piss someone off”.

    Wpaść po uszy w gówno

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    To be in a lot of trouble. Literally translates to “fall into shit to the ears”. Similar to the English phrase “to be in deep shit”.

    Wyglądać jak pół dupy zza krzaka

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    To look strange, weird.[20] Literally translates to “look like half an ass from behind a bush”. Similar to the English phrase “to look like shit”.

    Zabrać dupę w troki[21]

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    To get away, to run away. Usually referring to running away from something problematic.

    Zapieprzać[22]

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    To be going very fast.To be working hard.Zapierdalać[23]

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    1. To be going very fast.
    2. To be working hard.
    3. To steal.
    4. To stink.
    5. To beat (especially perform a single-punch knock-out).
    Zawracać dupę

    Pronunciation: IPA:

    To distract someone, to take their attention away from what they are doing.

    Use of profanity

    Numerous studies have been done to examine the way that profanity is used in everyday life situations as well as online. No studies give a definite answer as to whether vulgarity is more common online or not and has proved to be a difficult topic to study as it can change with time as well. One such study looked at different internet forums: one that was an open discussion, a closed discussion, and a social networking site. An open discussion allowed for the most anonymity while the other two conditions required some form of the users identifying themselves. The study found that users often used vulgar expressions criticized other users arguments in the discussions, attacked the users directly or used that language to insult a larger group. At times it is also just used as a way for users to express their general frustrations.

    It is said that profanity started being used in songs around the late 1970s and into the 1980s in Poland. It was a response to the state of the country at the time. The youth used vulgar expressions to show their frustrations.[24] Though songs that used such language would not be presented in the mass media, works with profanities more often circulated within communities. This censorship caused for more creative ways of expressing frustrations which lead to a faster development of Polish rock in the 1980s, which became quite popular and influential. Nowadays profanity is also used in more mainstream media at times. Polish pop music does not appear to have as much use of profanity as Polish rap music does. Movies of different genres also use profanity at times.

    Word borrowing

    A number of words in the Polish lexicon have been borrowed from foreign languages and used with similar meanings. There are several profane words or expressions that have been borrowed from other languages. One such word would be MILF. Borrowed from the English language, it means exactly what it does in its original context. The use of the abbreviation "WTF", as in "what the fuck" can also be used in Polish profanity. The noun "swołocz" is a borrowing from the Russian "сволочь". Some profanities have been borrowed from German and transcribed phonetically according to their pronunciation, e.g. "szajs" was derived from the German "Scheiße" which carries the same meaning as the Polish word. The appearance of this word in the Polish lexicon could be attributed to the historical partition of Poland where the country was occupied by its neighbors which tended to suppress the use of Polish language and enforce the use of theirs.

    Notes and References

    1. Book: Grochowski, Maciej (1948-).. Słownik polskich przekleństw i wulgaryzmów. 2008. Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. 9788301156534. 297671369.
    2. Book: janKomunikant (Organization). Słownik polszczyzny rzeczywistej (siłą rzeczy-fragment). 2011. Primum Verbum. 9788362157174. 767863631.
    3. Book: Dokowicz, Agnieszka.. Wulgaryzmy w języku kibiców polskich, czyli "Polska grać, k... mać!". 2015. Wydawnictwo Naukowe Silva Rerum. 9788364447532. 939912647.
    4. University of Rzeszów, Poland. Mormol. Paulina. 2016. The correlation between the high offensiveness of swear words and their productivity: A comparison of selected Polish and English examples. Studia Anglica Resoviensia. 13. 44–54. 10.15584/sar.2016.13.5. free.
    5. Book: Pinker, Steven, 1954-. The stuff of thought : language as a window into human nature. 2007. Viking. 9780670063277. New York. 154308853. registration.
    6. Zbróg. Piotr. Zbróg. Zuzanna. 2017-12-01. Reprezentacja społeczna wulgaryzmów w świetle wypowiedzi polskich internautów. Socjolingwistyka. 31. 205–230. 10.17651/SOCJOLING.31.13. free.
    7. Fundacja Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej. October 2013. Wulgaryzmy w Życiu Codziennym. Komunikat Z Badań.
    8. http://www.nto.pl/opinie/art/4084027,jezykoznawca-polacy-klna-jak-rej,id,t.html Polen curse as like Rej
    9. http://wroclaw.naszemiasto.pl/artykul/slownik-polszczyzny-rzeczywistej-czyli-jak-mowi-polska,728358,art,t,id,tm.html A dictionary of real Polish language, as the Polish street says. All vulgarisms.
    10. Web site: WSJP, certolić się. www.wsjp.pl. en. 2019-06-11.
    11. Web site: WSJP, wypierdalać. www.wsjp.pl. en. 2019-06-11.
    12. Web site: ciota – Wikisłownik, wolny słownik wielojęzyczny. pl.wiktionary.org. 2019-05-12.
    13. Web site: cwel – Wikisłownik, wolny słownik wielojęzyczny. pl.wiktionary.org. 2019-05-12.
    14. Web site: WSJP, kiblować. www.wsjp.pl. en. 2019-06-11.
    15. Web site: kurwa – Wikisłownik, wolny słownik wielojęzyczny. pl.wiktionary.org. 2019-05-12.
    16. Web site: WSJP, kurwa. www.wsjp.pl. en. 2019-06-11.
    17. Web site: mieć nasrane w głowie – Wikisłownik, wolny słownik wielojęzyczny. pl.wiktionary.org. 2019-05-12.
    18. Web site: obesrać – Wikisłownik, wolny słownik wielojęzyczny. pl.wiktionary.org. 2019-05-12.
    19. Web site: WSJP, obsrać. www.wsjp.pl. en. 2019-06-11.
    20. Web site: wyglądać jak pół dupy zza krzaka – Wikisłownik, wolny słownik wielojęzyczny. pl.wiktionary.org. 2019-05-12.
    21. Web site: zabrać dupę w troki – Wikisłownik, wolny słownik wielojęzyczny. pl.wiktionary.org. 2019-05-12.
    22. Web site: zapieprzać – Wikisłownik, wolny słownik wielojęzyczny. pl.wiktionary.org. 2019-05-12.
    23. Web site: zapierdalać – Wikisłownik, wolny słownik wielojęzyczny. pl.wiktionary.org. 2019-05-12.
    24. Gajda. Krzysztof. 2017. Profanity in songs. Seeking the limits of freedom of speech, and the reproduction and sanctioning of contemporary linguistic tendencies. Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Polonica. 45. 7. 10.18778/1505-9057.45.14. 11089/24801. free.

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