vaina
VY-nahnounColloquial
A Colombian Spanish slang term. Browse all Colombian slang.
What it means
Thing, thingummy — the universal placeholder for any object whose name you have not got to hand. 'Páseme esa vaina.'
A situation, usually an irritating one: 'qué vaina tan complicada', 'la vaina es que no hay plata'.
'¡Qué vaina!' on its own means 'what a shame' or 'what a nuisance', and is the standard sympathetic response to someone's bad news.
Literally: Pod, sheath.
Examples with translations
Pásame esa vaina de allá.
Pass me that thing over there.
La vaina es que el banco cierra a las cuatro.
The thing is, the bank closes at four.
Se le dañó el carro. — ¡Qué vaina!
His car broke down. — Oh, that's rotten luck!
Where it comes from
From vaina, 'pod, scabbard'. Shared across the Caribbean, but the register is not: in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela it is coarser, while in Colombia — especially on the coast, where it is most frequent — it is barely marked and heard from every kind of speaker.
Other forms
- Spellings and variants:
- vainita, vainazo
- Similar terms:
- cosa, chuchería