What Does Bordel Mean in English?

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By ThoughtCo Team
Updated on May 22, 2017

The French word bordel, pronounced "buhr- del," literally means "brothel," but is commonly used in casual expressions to mean "mess" or "chaos."

Examples and Common Expressions

Quel bordel! - What a stinking mess! What a shambles!

Ça va être le bordel! - It'll be chaos!

Other common French expressions that use bordel include:

  • mettre/foutre le bordel - to create havoc
  • mettre/foutre le bordel dans qqch - to screw/bugger something up
  • bordel de merde (vulgar expression used for emphasis) - for God's sake, goddamnit
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Team, ThoughtCo. "What Does Bordel Mean in English?" ThoughtCo, Dec. 6, 2021, thoughtco.com/le-bordel-vocabulary-1371654. Team, ThoughtCo. (2021, December 6). What Does Bordel Mean in English? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/le-bordel-vocabulary-1371654 Team, ThoughtCo. "What Does Bordel Mean in English?" ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/le-bordel-vocabulary-1371654 (accessed June 5, 2023).