# Polish profanity

The Polish language, like most others, contains swear words and profanity. Although some words are not always seen as pejorative, others are considered by some to be highly offensive. There is debate amongst scholars regarding the language's swear words that are considered to be the most derogatory.
In the Polish language, there exist different types of swearing (as coined by Steven Pinker); these include abusive, cathartic, dysphemistic, emphatic and idiomatic.
Research has suggested that Polish people perceive profanity differently depending on context, for example, swearing in public versus swearing in private. 65% of surveyed adults said they have sworn due to emotions and only 21% claimed they never swore.
The CBOS (Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej; The Center for Public Opinion Research) has conducted 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, thus making the report potentially inaccurate.

## Vulgar words

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. The dictionary of real Polish gives four words in 350 configurations, including the word "shit" in 47 functions.

### Vagina
#### Cipa

    Pronunciation: IPA:
      * Literally "pussy". Another form of the word is the diminutive "cipka", which is usually not considered as crude.
      * An insult towards a female.
      * A person that is considered incompetent.

#### Pizda

    Pronunciation: IPA:
      * Like "cipa", only more vulgar. Similar to the English "cunt". This is the same in Russian mat.
      * A black eye.
      * A coward.

### Penis
#### Chuj

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* "Dick" or "cock". The diminutive form of the word is "chujek".
* A rude person, mostly used towards males.
* A disliked male.

#### Chujowy

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* 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".
* 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.)"

#### Chujowo

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* An adverb derived from "chuj".
* Used to describe a bad state of being.
* Used to describe a bad way of doing something.

### To copulate
#### Pierdolić się

    Pronunciation: IPA:
      * To have sex.
      * To waste time on something
      * To be overly cautious with something.

#### Jebać

    Pronunciation: IPA:
       The litersal meaning is "to fuck"/have sex with someone. This word has many derivative words and figurative meankings, and is in fact one of the most versatile words in the Polish language. Examples include:
| Term | Meaning | Example (PL) | Translation |
| Odjebać | Break off/Screw up | Co 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:
      * "To fuck" or to have sex.
      * To lie, talk nonsense.
      * To disregard something or someone as unimportant (similar to the English expression "fuck this"/"fuck you").
      * To waste time on something.
       In a non-vulgar instance it means to add pepper.

#### Pierdolić

    Pronunciation: IPA:
      * To have sex, "to fuck".
      * To regard something as irrelevant, not worth attention.
      * 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.

#### Wyruchać

    Pronunciation: IPA:
      * To have sex with someone, to "fuck" someone. A variation of "ruchać," often used in the past or future tense.
      * To deceive someone.
      * To steal from someone.

#### Rżnąć

    Pronunciation: IPA:
       To have sex or "to fuck". Also has multiple non-vulgar meanings, e.g. "to saw".

#### Wypierdalać

    Pronunciation: IPA:
      * To kick someone out.
      * To get away from somewhere.
      * To throw something away.

### Racial slurs
#### 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:
* An offensive term for an Asian person.
* In a non-vulgar context: diagonal.

#### Żółtek

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* An offensive term for an Asian person, literally "yellowie".
* Pope John Paul II, mockingly referred to as rzułta morda (lit. yellowface)

#### Ciapaty

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* An offensive term for a person of a slightly darker skin color but not black, usually Indian subcontinent, people from the Middle East.
* Word probably comes from "ćapati", a type of flat bread traditionally made in India and Pakistan.

### Anti-LGBT slurs
#### Ciota

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* Period, menstruation.
* An insulting way to call a homosexual, usually one behaving in a perceived to be overly feminine way.

#### Cwel

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* A male providing sexual services to homosexual inmates in prison
* An insult towards a male.

#### Pedał

    Pronunciation: IPA:
    Faggot (a gay man). The literal meaning is "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:
* To beat someone up, give someone a beating.
* To talk nonsense.

#### Dopieprzać

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* Same as "dopierdalać" but less vulgar.

#### Dupa

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* Ass.
* A scaredy cat.
* Insult towards a man.
* A vulgar way to call an attractive woman.
* Girlfriend (preferably when discussed in her absence, unless she's a ździra).

#### Gówno

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* Feces, literally "shit".
* Used as an insult towards a person seen as someone not worthy of attention.
* Something useless, worth nothing.
* Can also literally mean "nothing", similar to "jack shit" or "fuck all".

#### Jasna cholera

    Pronunciation: IPA:
    A word to express frustration. Similar to "holy shit" in English.

#### Kiblować

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* To be serving a sentence in prison.
* To repeat a grade in school.

#### Kurwa

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* A female prostitute.
* An immoral, unethical person.
* An expression of frustration, like "fuck!" in English.
* A filler like "fucking" in an English sentence, e.g. "I hate this fucking show".

#### Mieć nasrane w głowie

    Pronunciation: IPA:
    To behave weirdly, illogically, with no sense.

#### Obesrać/obsrać

    Pronunciation: IPA:
    To dirty someone or something with feces.

#### Pierdolić

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* To have sex, "to fuck".
* To regard something as irrelevant, not worth attention.
* To lie, talk nonsense.

#### Robić w chuja

    Pronunciation: IPA:
    To fool someone. Literally: "do in a dick".

#### Samojebka

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* To jerk off, to masturbate. Literally: "self-fucking".
* To take a picture of yourself, to take a selfie.

#### Srać

    Pronunciation: IPA:
* To defecate, "to (take a) shit".
* 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:
* Feces, literally "shit".
* 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".

## Context and function

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. Though songs that used such language would be presented in the mass media, works with profanities more often circulated within communities. This censorship paved the way for innovation in the way of expressing emotion and frustration, which streamlined the development of Polish rock in the 1980s (which would become popular and influential). Profanity has not been censored as heavily in Polish music in recent years.

## Lexical 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.