11 Quebecois Swear Words that Confuse the French

Directly translating as tabernacle, chalice, and baptism, these are three of the most common sacres that can be heard in Quebecois. Tabarnak is considered to be the most profane. In its full glory, you might hear something like: “Osti de tabarnak de sacrament, de câlice de ciboire de criss de marde!” The expressions can take on different spellings, and are often pronounced slightly differently from the official words. All of them have the approximate weight of “fuck” in English.

Like the words above, sacrament connects to Catholicism and can be roughly translated as “goddammit!”

Again drawing on liturgical terms, ostie de colon is generally used to refer to someone as an idiot.

Coliss is a variation on the above-mentioned câlice, and the expression can be translated as “we don’t care.” Another spelling variation is “calisse.”

Guidoune is an informal and offensive word referring to a promiscuous woman. Another word with a similar word is pitoune.

Something that is niaiseux is stupid, whether it’s a person, an object, an idea, or a situation. T’es donc ben niaiseux means “you’re really stupid,” or in a lighter tone it can mean something more like “silly.” The feminine form is niaiseuse.

The literal translation of this phrase is “ to give a car of shit.” The English equivalent would be “to give someone shit,” an argumentative sense.

A slightly milder expression on the sliding scale of Quebecois profanities, vidange means garbage. Tu es une vidange means “you’re garbage” or “you’re trash,” which gets contracted to T’es une vidange, or can be rendered more offensively as T’es une osti de vidange, adding in a well-placed sacre.

This can be interpreted as “why the hell did you do that?”

Meaning “I’m pissed” or “I’m mad,” more literally this means “I have fire in my ass.”

Get out! This has the weight of “get the hell out” or “get the fuck out.”

Check out these tours and excursions in Quebec.

View Tours >>