gonorrea

What it means

1. 1.

   A contemptible person. At full force this is close to the strongest insult in Colombian Spanish and has started fights.

2. 2.

   Among close male friends in Medellín, an affectionate vocative — '¡quiubo, gonorrea!' — exactly parallel to the way English speakers greet friends with words they would never accept from a stranger.

3. 3.

   As an intensifier for anything unbearable: 'un frío gonorrea', a filthy cold.

Literally: Gonorrhoea.

Examples with translations

• Ese man es una gonorrea, no le preste plata.

  That guy is a piece of work, don't lend him money.

• ¡Quiubo, gonorrea, dónde se había metido!

  Hey, you old bastard, where have you been!

  Note: Only works between men who are genuinely close, and only really in Medellín. A foreigner attempting it will be misread.

• Está haciendo un calor gonorrea.

  It's disgustingly hot.

Where it comes from

The disease name, taken up in Medellín's parlache in the 1980s and 1990s and spread nationally by television and music. Disease-as-insult is an old pattern in Spanish, but the friendly vocative sense is specifically Antioquian and is the part outsiders get wrong.

First attested: 1980s

Other forms

Spellings and variants:

gono, gonorrea hijueputa

Similar terms:

malparido, hijueputa