A List of (mostly) English Profanity

For [reasons], I went looking for a list of English profanity that didn’t include any bigoted terms. I either found short lists that only contained words I already knew or long lists that included words I was looking for along with a lot of ableist, homophobic, and queerphobic bullshit.

So I asked folks on Fedi and a few other places for their suggestions and put together my own list. This list is incomplete (obviously), and I’d like to keep adding to it. Ideally, I’d like to have at least three terms for each letter of the alphabet because variety is the spice of life.

As I said, this started as a personal project, but I’m sharing it here as a ‘Writer’s Resource’ because I’ve found that by being thoughtful in the expletives a character uses (or doesn’t use), I can add a lot of personality. At the base level, this can be ‘this character curses, that character doesn’t.’ But characters who don’t curse still use emotional intensifiers. They just stick with socially acceptable ones. I will always love Courtney Milan’s genteel lady who cursed in ducks. Both the obvious, ‘Duck, duck, duck!” but also ‘Oh, mallards…’ and ‘ducklings.’

Then you have characters who use different ‘levels’ of cursing. The character whose term of choice is ‘fuck’ and its variations versus the character who mostly sticks to ‘shit.’
But it can go beyond that. Does your American character prefer British profanity? (My go-to curse is ‘bloody.’) Or is your character British and understands the difference between a cockwoble and a cockalorum? Do they stick with a single preferred term or curse like a sailor? (With verve, creativity, and a multi-cultural vocabulary.)

As I can, I’ll be updating with definitions and word origin. Share your favorites in comments and I’ll add them.

 

The List

A

1. ass
2. asshole
3. asshat
4. arschloch

B

1. bullshit
2. bullshitter
3. bollocks — testicles (England)
4. bloody — (England)

C

1. clusterfuck — fucked up situation
2. cock
3. cockwomble
4. cockalorum
5. cock-up

D

1. damn — send to an eternity in the Christian punishment realm
2. dick
3. dickhead
4. douche
5. douchecanoe
6. dickweed
7. dingleberry — a bit of poop stuck in someone’s ass hair

E

F

1. fecker — fucker
2. feck — alternate pronunciation of ‘fuck’ (England and Scotland)
3. frak — ‘fuck’ alternative
4. frell — from Farscape, generic four-letter word replacement
5. fuck (and all it’s many variations) — sex, to have sex (origin unknown, evidence of use in Medieval England)

G

1. gobshite — mouth shit, (England (I think))

H

1. hell — Christian realm of damnation (term from old Norse goddess Hel and the realm of ice of the same name)

I

J

1. jackass — male donkey

K

L

M

1. maggot — fly larvae that eat rotten meat
2. motherfucker

N

O

P

1. plonker
2. pillock
3. prat
4. p’tak — ‘son of a bitch’, (Klingon)

Q

R

1. rat-arsed — drunk, drunkard

S

1. sod-off — alternative to ‘fuck off’ (England)
2. schmuck — obnoxious person, asshole, (Yiddish)
3. shit — poop, to poop
4. smeg — generic four letter word replacement OR shortened form of ‘smegma’, multiple origins

T

1. tool
2. twerp

U

V

W

X

Y

Z