Harmless old-fashioned Polish swear words/phrases

your spelling was almost on point - it's Daj się wypchać i pomalować na zielono"

Nie gadaj tyle bo zjedza cie motyle.... don't talk so much because butterflies will eat you (a silly rhyme)

Dzesz sie jak stare przescieradlo... you're yelling like old sheets tearing

Lecisz jak smrod po gaciach... you're wandering like a bad smell throughout underwear

Przykim przystajesz, takim sie stajesz.... the people you hang around are the ones you become, a rhyme .. my mom use to say this all the time to me when I was with friends she didn't like

Ciemno jak w dupie u murzyna... it's dark as the inside of a black mans butt

Something about... jak wrone to krakasz jak I one.. when you hang out with crows (meant to mean a bad crowd) you speak/act like them

There's a lot these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head


Klamca perfidny.. It means like a ruthless or back stabbing liar

kiedy wejdziesz między wrony, musisz krakać tak jak one

That's it thanks gumishu

Thank you, Gumishu 11. Do you know if that's the way the saying goes?

Anybody have any idea what this means. Sorry for the spelling, this is phonetic.

Jeni kochany nezefu schvinti

Jezu kochany, Józefie święty!

The spelling is not right, but doing best I can; gupia wradiat chort, which we understood to mean crazy idiot devil. This was grandma's saying.

@Davey
Yes, "Psia krew" it is, nothing much about it, my aunts in Poland used it a lot when I was small. :)

Gupi is stupid. Wradiat sounds like wredny - nasty, mean. Chort - devil. Stupid nasty devil - I think your grandma said it when you were naughty - e.g., you played a silly trick one her. :)

I didn't have time to read all the comments/responses/suggestions, but I certainly heard "psia Krew!!" often as a kid. Once I understood the literal translation it didn't make much sense as a cuss phrase, but ..... if the subject of your anger is of dog's blood, does that not mean descended from or perhaps a son of a female dog? Hmm.. what cuss phrase do we use in English that means the same thing?? Son of a female dog? Nah can't be that.

My grandad used to say psa krew when the nun's at his convalescent home came into the room..and left quickly. I was told I should never use the phrase but not what it meant. Powerful phrase...

I wish it was used instead of this primitive kurwa.

not psiakrew ?


I'm old enough to remember when a single out loud 'kurvva' was enough to shock an entire streetcar full of people into silence.... now by 12 years or so it's kurvva this, dvpa that hvj the other... spiced up with the occasional łał or mega...

The difference then between "psiakrew" vs. "psiakrew bydlo"?
Always been curious about that, but even native speakers seemed hard pressed:-)

This is horrible. It is obvious I cry out kurwa mać when I hit my finger with a fekking hammer while working on the farm and even my kids understand that. But inserting swear words every 3 words is a sign of total cretinism - when I hear people do it, I immediately stay away coz it is not my company.


That must be one of those ancient Polish expressions which travelled to the US with Polish immigrants long ago and were retained there but got lost in Poland proper also long ago. I never heard it.

In all likelihood, pawian.

I don't think 'psiakrew bydło' has ever been a collocation. I have never heard it, except from Lyzko.
IMO, it might have been 'Psiakrew, bydło!' used on a single occasion like in 'co za bydło! ' etc.
Where did you get it, Lyzko?

Older Poles with possibly limited schooling were probably conflating two separate idioms which sounded to me as though they belonged together.

You don't need to be educated to know how to swear.
Whoever used that simply didn't really know Polish.

Or forgot their native language:-)

It's more likely that wasn't their native language.

Sounds to me like non Polish labourers that worked with Poles and heard a saying repeatedly but then it got lost in their pronunciation or translation.

Possibly too, native Yiddish speakers perhaps, from a shtetl who managed somehow to cobble together some broken Polish?

Very possible.

My aunt used to say....uh-ho-leta.....if I repeated it...dad would advise me not to....what does it mean ?

Hołota roughly translates as "rabble".

Thanks, all, wonderful local colour to use in writing.

"Hołota" is such a great word and so fun to say... I only regret that I don't get enough chances to use it....

It might have been cholera as well.