Brazilian Swear Words: A Learner's Guide, From Mild to Never-Say-This

Content warning: this guide to Brazilian profanity is written for adult learners. It contains strong swear words, crude sexual vocabulary and, in one clearly marked section near the end, slurs. Everything is spelled out in full, because a word you've only ever seen as a row of asterisks is hard to recognize in a noisy bar. If you're at work, or someone young is reading over your shoulder, save it for later.

The first time I played pelada, the casual after-work football Brazilians play on any free court, I went home with a dozen new words I couldn't use at the office. Our goalkeeper shouted porra! when he let in a goal. Ten minutes later he shouted it again, grinning, after a save. One of the defenders said something colourful about my mother when I got the ball past him, and at the end of the night he was the one who gave me a lift home.

Brazilian Portuguese swear words are everywhere, and a surprising number of them aren't angry at all. What Brazilians take seriously is who a word is aimed at. Below, the vocabulary is ranked from "fine in front of anyone's grandmother" to "never say this", with what each word does in real conversation.

How swearing works in Brazilian Portuguese

Three habits explain most of what you'll hear.

People swear at situations and insult people. Porra, esqueci a senha! — "Fuck, I forgot the password!" — is a reaction to a bad moment, and nobody in the room takes it personally. Aim the same energy at a person and the temperature changes fast.

Strong words often praise. A concert can be foda (amazing), a view can be do caralho (fucking incredible), and a lucky break can be uma puta sorte (a hell of a stroke of luck). If you hear every swear word as anger, you'll misread half the excited conversations around you.

The literal meanings have mostly worn off. Puta que pariu means, word for word, "the whore who gave birth," yet people say it the way English speakers say "holy shit." Nobody's mother is involved.

One small piece of grammar helps with everything below. Seu and sua in front of an insult don't mean "your." Seu idiota! is "You idiot!", and Sua chata! is "You're such a pain!" said to a woman. Brazilians also put the insult first and the person second: o idiota do motorista is "that idiot of a driver," not "the driver's idiot."

Brazilian swear words ranked by risk

Treat this as a scale for a foreigner meeting new people. Families, offices, regions and friendships all set their own limits, and an accent changes things too: a word that sounds natural from a Brazilian friend can sound harsher, or just odd, coming from you.

Level 1: words you can say in front of anyone's grandmother

Most strong words have a softened twin, the way English has "darn" and "shoot." These are the ones I'd use at a new job, at a family lunch, or anywhere children are listening:

• Caramba! or Caraca! (kuh-RUM-buh, kuh-RAH-kuh): the polite stand-ins for caralho. Caraca, que vista! — "Wow, what a view!"
• Poxa! (POH-shuh): the soft cousin of porra, good for disappointment. Poxa, choveu de novo. — "Aw, it rained again."
• Putz! (pootz): a clipped puta for small disasters. Putz, esqueci o guarda-chuva. — "Shoot, I forgot my umbrella."
• Droga! and Que porcaria!: "Dammit!" and "What a piece of junk!" Use them where you'd otherwise reach for merda.
• Que saco!: "What a drag!" Saco means "bag" and has a cruder second meaning, but the phrase itself is everyday. A few strict households still raise an eyebrow.
• Cacilda!: a jokey stand-in made famous as cacildis by the comedian Mussum. His catchphrases still circulate as memes, so it usually gets a laugh.

Brazilians also have a lovely set of ways to tell someone to go away without swearing at all:

• Vai catar coquinho! — "Go pick little coconuts!"
• Vai pentear macaco! — "Go comb a monkey!"
• Vai plantar batata! — "Go plant potatoes!"
• Vai ver se eu estou na esquina! — "Go see if I'm on the corner!"

They're cartoonish enough to use on a sibling, or on a friend who won't stop teasing you.

Try this in Falando: Ir pentear macaco is one of the expressions in the Idioms Trainer, along with puxar saco, "to suck up to someone," which borrows the same saco as que saco.

Level 2: rude, but you'll hear it at the office

These are the words that make a Brazilian parent say olha a boca! — "watch your mouth!" — without anyone being truly upset.

Merda (MEHR-duh) is "shit," and it does most of what the English word does. Que merda! — "Shit!" or "What a mess!" Deu merda means "it all went wrong." It also has a surprising polite job: in Brazilian theatre, actors wish each other merda before a show instead of "good luck," much as English speakers say "break a leg." The polite reply is another merda, never obrigado.

Bosta (BOHSS-tuh, with an open o) is "shit" too, but it leans towards "crap": Esse filme é uma bosta — "This film is crap." To my ear it sounds a little more schoolyard than merda.

Pô (poh) is a shortened porra that has lost most of its sting. Pô, cara, não faz isso! — "Come on, man, don't do that!" Our Brazilian Portuguese exclamations guide covers pô along with the milder reactions around it.

Cacete (kuh-SEH-chee) is literally a club or cudgel, and it's also slang for a penis. Usually you'll hear it as an intensifier: Tá frio pra cacete — "It's damn cold."

The everyday insults at this level run roughly from playground to pub: bobo (silly), chato (annoying), mané (dope), babaca (jerk), otário (sucker, someone easily fooled), then idiota and imbecil. None of them is friendly, but none of them ends a friendship either.

Level 3: porra, caralho, foda and the words you'll hear everywhere

This is what you'll hear in football bars, in traffic jams and in plenty of Brazilian films made for adults. These words are vulgar, and so common that hearing one rarely means something has gone wrong.

Porra (roughly POH-huh; the rr sounds like an English h in Rio and São Paulo) literally means semen, though almost nobody means that. It's the all-purpose reaction, as good for a missed bus as for a winning goal. Porra nenhuma means "nothing at all" or "no way": Ele não fez porra nenhuma — "He didn't do a damn thing."

Caralho (kuh-RAH-lyoo) literally means penis. In fast speech and in messages it often becomes carai or caraio. Alone, it's a reaction, close to "holy shit!" It also builds two phrases you'll hear constantly:

• do caralho after a noun means amazing: Foi uma festa do caralho — "It was a fucking great party."
• pra caralho after an adjective or verb means a lot: Tá calor pra caralho — "It's hot as hell."

Foda (FOH-duh, with an open o) swings between awesome and awful, and only the context tells you which. Foda-se is "fuck it" or "I don't care," fodeu! is "we're screwed!", and tô fodido is "I'm screwed." The verb foder is the vulgar word for sex, and it also means to wreck something or screw someone over: Esse trânsito me fodeu — "This traffic screwed me."

Puta means "whore," and aimed at a woman it belongs in level 5. Inside fixed phrases, though, it works as an intensifier. Puta que pariu! (POO-tuh kee puh-REE-oo) is "holy shit!" or "goddammit!", depending on the news. Uma puta before a noun means "a hell of a," and estar puto means to be furious: Tô puto com ele — "I'm pissed off at him."

The same word can carry good news or bad news:

When a friend tells you about their week and says foi foda, do you congratulate them or console them? Look at their face before you answer.

In messages, most of these shrink to letters. You'll see pqp (puta que pariu), krl or crl (caralho), fdp (filho da puta), vsf (vai se foder) and tnc (tomar no cu). Our WhatsApp slang guide covers the cleaner abbreviations that fill the rest of a group chat.

Try this in Falando: If you're 18 or over, switch on Enable explicit content in your Learning settings to see Falando's explicit vocabulary, including porra, foda-se and puta que pariu. For the grammar behind them, read the C2 lessons Cursing 101: foda, foder and caralho and Cursing 102: puta, porra, merda and bosta.

Level 4: insults aimed at a person

This is where the same vocabulary turns personal. Porra at a dropped phone is level 3. Vai se foder at the person who bumped into you is level 4, and you'll have to deal with whatever happens next.

The "fuck off" family:

• Vai se foder — "Fuck off."
• Vai tomar no cu — "Up yours," though far cruder: literally "go take it up the ass."
• Vai pra puta que pariu — roughly "go to hell."

And the insults themselves: filho da puta (son of a bitch), cuzão (asshole), escroto (scumbag, literally "scrotum"), desgraçado (bastard), arrombado (a very crude insult, literally "broken open") and corno (cuckold).

Filho da puta is the strange one. Between close friends, said with admiration, it can mean "the lucky bastard": O filho da puta acertou de novo! — "The bastard got it right again!" Said to someone's face in anger, it's one of the strongest things you can say. Anything involving the other person's mother goes the same way.

Football stadiums run on their own rules. A crowd will call the referee ladrão (thief) and corno for ninety minutes and then go home to dinner. Those rules don't follow you out of the ground.

Traffic has its own vocabulary too. The mild end is barbeiro! (literally "barber," meaning a terrible driver), tá cego? ("are you blind?") and ô, mané! ("hey, dope!"). If you're the one at the wheel, I'd stop there.

Level 5: never say this

This section names slurs so that you can recognize them. They're here for listening only.

You'll hear some of these casually, which is exactly why learners get caught out.

Sexuality and gender. Viado (an alteration of veado, "deer") and bicha are slurs for gay men, sapatão targets lesbians, and traveco targets trans women. You'll hear straight male friends throw viado at each other as banter, and some LGBTQ+ Brazilians use viado and bicha among themselves. Neither is an invitation for you. Since a 2019 Supreme Court ruling, homophobia and transphobia have been punishable under Brazil's racism law, and football referees are instructed to stop matches over homophobic chanting.

The deer connection explains a curious superstition, and shows how loaded the word still is. In the jogo do bicho, an illegal street lottery that assigns an animal to each group of numbers, the deer is group 24, and many Brazilian men still avoid wearing 24 on a football shirt.

Race. Calling a Black person macaco (monkey) is racial abuse, and since 2023 Brazilian law has treated racial insults as a crime of racism, punishable by two to five years in prison. Some everyday expressions are criticised for the same reason, and you can easily skip them: cabelo ruim ("bad hair," said of Afro-textured hair), a coisa tá preta ("things are black," meaning things are bad) and mulata.

Disability. Retardado and mongol get used casually to mean "idiot." Swap them for bobo or idiota.

Origin. In Rio, paraíba gets thrown at anyone from the Northeast as an insult, whatever state they're from, and in São Paulo baiano does the same job. As names for a real home state they're ordinary words. As insults, they're prejudice.

Women. Puta, vagabunda, vadia and piranha aimed at a woman stop being intensifiers. They're misogynistic, full stop.

Brazilian swear words that change meaning in Portugal

A Lisbon grandmother praising a rapariga simpática is paying a compliment that could get her into real trouble in Recife. Our European vs Brazilian Portuguese guide covers more of these mismatches.

People also ask about Brazilian Portuguese swear words

What is the worst swear word in Brazilian Portuguese?

There's no single winner. Slurs are the worst things you can say, and among ordinary swear words, filho da puta or vai tomar no cu said to someone's face is the most likely to start a fight.

What does "porra" mean?

Literally semen, but in practice it's an all-purpose exclamation, close to "fuck!" or "damn!" in English. Porra nenhuma means "nothing at all."

Is "caralho" offensive?

It's vulgar, so keep it away from work and from people you've just met. Among friends it's extremely common, and do caralho is even a compliment.

What does PQP mean?

It's short for puta que pariu, an exclamation like "holy shit" or "goddammit." You'll mostly see it written in messages and comments.

Listen to all of it, say a little of it

Your listening vocabulary should go all the way down to level 5. These words turn up in films, songs and stadium chants, and you need to know when a conversation has turned. Your speaking vocabulary can stay much shorter. My own rule after a few years here: level 1 with anyone, level 2 with friends, level 3 only once those friends have used it with me first, level 4 never, and level 5 not even in my head.

Try this in Falando: Real Talk trains your ear with clips of Brazilians speaking naturally. When a reaction catches your attention, replay it and listen to the tone before you decide what it meant. Foda can mean two opposite things, and the voice usually tells you which one.

And the next time a Brazilian friend teaches you a new word at a pelada, ask which level it is before you try it out at their mother's dinner table.