das ist mir Wurst

What it means

1. 1.

   I couldn't care less; it's all the same to me. Not rude, not aggressive — just a flat statement of indifference, and far more common in speech than the neutral 'das ist mir egal'.

2. 2.

   The southern and Austrian form is 'Wurscht', and 'wurscht' also works as a bare adjective: 'is mir wurscht'.

Literally: That is sausage to me.

Examples with translations

• Italienisch oder Thai? — Ist mir Wurst.

  Italian or Thai? — I really don't mind.

• Ob er kommt oder nicht, das ist mir völlig Wurst.

  Whether he comes or not, I couldn't care less.

Where it comes from

Attested since the 19th century; the reasoning behind it is genuinely unclear. The two standard explanations — that a sausage has two ends and it makes no difference which you start at, and that the butcher's offcuts all went into the sausage regardless — are both after-the-fact rationalisations, and neither has documentary support.

First attested: 19th century

Other forms

Spellings and variants:

das ist mir wurscht, wurscht