Foul language (Advanced): Common swear words and phrases

💬 The ending changes with who you mean: parvo for a man, parva for a woman.

🇵🇹 Mild, and often used affectionately or teasingly. Parents say it to kids, and friends to each other.

💬 Its main meaning is someone easily fooled, a sucker, rather than just someone unintelligent.

💬 sacana ends in a but is used for men too: aquele sacana "that bastard".

🇵🇹 Between friends it can be almost admiring, like "you sly devil". Aimed at a stranger, it's a clear insult.

🇵🇹 Highly offensive when aimed at a person. You'll mostly hear it inside fixed curses like filho da puta "son of a bitch".

💬 de + a becomes da, so filho de a puta turns into filho da puta. You'll see the same contraction in many common phrases, like casa da Maria.

🇵🇹 A very strong insult when directed at a person. In some contexts it can also be an exclamation of anger or surprise, but it still sounds highly vulgar.

💬 da is de + a squeezed together, meaning "of the". Swapping mãe for puta makes the much stronger original.

🇵🇹 This is the polite stand-in. It's acceptable when venting, and sometimes even admiring.

💬 cabra literally means "goat", the female animal, so it's an ordinary word on a farm or a menu.

🇵🇹 Crude but common in everyday jokes and expressions. Avoid it in polite company.

💬 Not actually rude: chato just means annoying or boring, and works for people and things alike, as in Que chato! "How annoying!".

💬 The -te attaches to the verb with a hyphen in commands, here "quiet yourself". Same pattern: Senta-te! "Sit down!".

🇵🇹 It's blunt even without swearing. Use it only with people you know well.

🇵🇹 Adding caralho to the end of any command turns it aggressive. This is fighting talk.

💬 Literally "go away", and the tone decides how rude it is. Said calmly, it's just a firm request to leave.

💬 para o is often said as one blurred word, pró, in speech: Vai pró inferno!.

💬 Literally "go take a walk". dar uma volta is also a perfectly innocent way to say "go for a stroll".

🇵🇹 Among the most aggressive things you can say to someone. Expect a fight or the end of a friendship.

🇵🇹 Very vulgar and aggressive, though the northern Portuguese use it more casually than people in Lisbon.

💬 à is a + a merged, meaning "to the". The accent marks the merge: Vou à praia "I'm going to the beach".

💬 Literally "I don't want to know". It contains no swear word, but it's used to mean you couldn't care less.

🇵🇹 It can sound dismissive, so watch your tone with strangers.

💬 cagar means "to shit", so literally it's "I'm shitting on it". The pattern estou a + verb means "I'm doing something right now": Estou a comer "I'm eating".

💬 A woman says Estou fodida, because the ending follows the speaker. The same is true of cansado/cansada "tired".

🇵🇹 Milder than the more obscene options here, so people may use it in mixed company where foda-se would be too much. It still shows irritation or surprise.

🇵🇹 Mild enough for most everyday situations, unlike the caralho version.

💬 The ending -ão makes a word bigger, so this is literally a "big word". The plural is palavrões.

💬 When you tell someone not to do something, the verb changes shape: dizes becomes digas. Same with Não fales! "Don't talk!".

🇵🇹 This is what parents say to kids, and it's the informal tu form, so use it only with people you're close to.