херня (khernya)

What it means

1. 1.

   Rubbish; nonsense; a thing of no value. Used both for talk that is untrue and for objects the speaker cannot be bothered to name — 'some bit of junk'.

2. 2.

   The softened stand-in for хуйня, and one grade milder: херня is the word an office worker uses in front of colleagues, хуйня the one used once the door closes.

Examples with translations

• Не читай это, полная херня.

  Don't bother reading that — it's total rubbish.

• Что это за херня у тебя в сумке?

  What's this thing in your bag?

  Note: Dismissive but not hostile; used constantly for objects whose name escapes the speaker.

Where it comes from

From хер, the old name of the Cyrillic letter Х, which became a polite way of referring to the mat word starting with it. The euphemism has since coarsened into something close to what it was avoiding.

First attested: 19th century

Other forms

Romanised as:

khernya