coño

What it means

1. 1.

   Damn it; bloody hell. An interjection of frustration, surprise or emphasis, thrown in several times a sentence by speakers who are annoyed.

2. 2.

   As an intensifier attached to a question — '¿pero qué coño e' esto?' — it carries exasperation rather than obscenity.

3. 3.

   Its literal anatomical sense is essentially dormant in Dominican speech, which is why speakers use it more freely than the translation suggests. It is still vulgar: not in front of a client, not in front of your mother-in-law.

Examples with translations

• ¡Coño, se me olvidó la llave!

  Damn it, I forgot the key!

• ¿Pero qué coño tú tá haciendo?

  What on earth do you think you're doing?

Where it comes from

Literally the vulva, from Latin cunnus. Its life as a general-purpose interjection is shared with Spain, Cuba and Venezuela; in all of them the literal reading has faded, and in none of them has the word become polite.