Every language has its own swear words, and Italian is no exception. Italian swear words, or parolacce, are used in everyday conversations, especially the milder bad words.
To get you started, here are some of the mildest Italian swear words. Further on in this lesson we will look at the pronunciation of these and more Italian swear words.
Resources for further reading:
Let’s begin with these, as they are reasonably safe to use!
Rocket Record lets you perfect your Italian pronunciation. Just listen to the native speaker audio and then use the microphone icon to record yourself. Once you’re done, you’ll get a score out of 100 on your pronunciation and can listen to your own audio playback. (Use a headset mic for best results.) Problems? Click here!
Accidenti!
Damn it, holy smoke!
Porca vacca!
Holy cow!
Porca miseria!
For God's sake, for Goodness' sake
Porco cane!
For God's sake!
Cavolo!
Holy smoke!
Col cavolo!
No way!
Madonna!
Good God!
Madonna santa!
Good God!
Che due palle!
What the heck!
Dio santo!
Oh my God!
Oh mio Dio!
Oh my God!
Al diavolo!
To hell with that!
These are harsher, but still very common:
Cazzo!
Shit!
Merda!
Shit!
Minchia!
Shit! (southern variant of “cazzo”)
Porca puttana!
F*ck!
Porco Giuda!
F*ck!
Porca Eva!
F*ck!
Che due coglioni!
What the f*ck
Puttana!
B*tch!
Stronzo!
A**hole! (male variant; lit. “turd”)
Stronza!
A**hole! (female)
Testa di cazzo!
D*ckhead!
Vaffanculo
Go f*ck yourself!
Va’ a fare in culo!
Go f*ck yourself! (less common than “vaffanculo”)
Fottiti!
Go f*ck yourself!
Coglione!
Moron!
Figlio di puttana!
Son of a b*tch!
Leccaculo
Kiss a**
Blasphemies almost always begin with porco followed by a religious entity (Giuda and Eva are exceptions, as we’ve seen above). They are very common among all age groups, although they are more common among teenagers.
People living in the Veneto region are famous for cursing (it could be said it’s almost a tradition), but in all other parts of Italy blasphemies are considered very rude and in a not-so-distant past this kind of cursing would violate the law. Be careful when you use them!
Thus ends our free lesson. I hope you learned tons of “colorful” words!
A presto!
Maria DiLorenzi: Rocket Italian
Reinforce your learning from this lesson with the Rocket Reinforcement activities!