# Vegetable and fruit names as an insult



## zaffy

Do you use vegetable or fruit names as an insult in your languages? If so, what names do you use?

In Polish:

Tu buraku! = You beetroot! (primitive, redneck, yahoo)


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## Awwal12

Using animal names as insults is almost universal in human languages (the full list would be extremely long). Vegetables are something rare indeed, though. At least I cannot think about anything of that kind in Russian.


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## Welsh_Sion

*Vegetables *- seems *'turnip'* is a favourite here

*English

cabbage*, pea-brain(ed), turnip, leek muncher/chewer/eater* ( = insulting terminology for a Welsh person. The 'leek' being our national vegetable/symbol), *veggie* (an insult or possibly an endearment towards someone who is a vegetarian)

And of course '*a vegetable*' (from the idea of being unresponsive, 'being in a vegetative state')

*Welsh

rwdan* (turnip), *pen rwdan* (turnip head), *meipen* (turnip, swede), *pen meipen* (swede-head), the false friend *'moron'* (carrots), *lol botes maip* ( = turnip stew = utter confusion/stupidity ... that's if you're allowing phrases)

** *Unlike French where *chou* can be a term of endearment.

Agree with @Awwal12. Far too many to list animals. Let's keep this thread on vegetables.


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## zaffy

Welsh_Sion said:


> *turnip, leek muncher/chewer/eater* ( = insulting terminology for a Welsh person.


So if I say I saw a few turnips, could that mean I saw a few Welsh people?


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## nimak

*Macedonian*:

*компир* (kómpir) ['kɔmpir] m. = "_potato_", is used with the meaning of "_twit_", a silly or foolish person.
*тиква* (tíkva) ['tikva] f. = "_pumpkin_", is used with the meaning of "_fool_", "_stupid_", "_blockhead_", someone who do not understand anything.
*црпка* (cŕpka) ['t͡sr̩pka] f. = "_gourd_", is used with the meaning of "_brainless_", "_empty head_", similar with "tikva".
*зелка* (zélka) ['zɛɫka] f.  = "_cabbage_" is used with the meaning of "_baldhead_", but also for "_inexperienced_", "_green_" etc.


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## apmoy70

Greek:

*«Βλίτο»* [ˈvli.tɔ] (neut.) --> _Guernsey pigweed, Amatanthus blitum_ (we eat the leaves and the tender shoots cooked in steam or boiled and then served with olive oil, lemon and salt); used for the foolish, or gullible person < Classical neut. noun *«βλίτον» blítŏn* (idem), used as a denigrating designation for the silly or foolish person since antiquity (adj. *«βλίτων» blítōn* (masc. & fem.) of unknown etymology).

*«Γουρούνι»* [ɣuˈɾu.ni] (neut.) --> _(colloq.) piɡ_; used for the inconsiderate, bad mannered person < Byz. Gr neut. *«γουρούνιον» gouroúniŏn* --> _pig_, diminutive of Koine (originally Doric) 3rd declension fem. *«γρωνάς» grōnás* (nom. sing.), *«γρωνάδος» grōnádŏs* (gen. sing.) --> _she-pig, sow_, possibly an onomatopoeia from the pig's snort *«γρῦ» grû*.

*«Γάιδαρος»* [ˈɣai̯.ða.ɾɔs] (masc.) or *«γαϊδούρι»* [ɣa.iˈðu.ɾi] (neut.) --> _(colloq.) donkey_; inconsiderate, bad mannered, unrefined person < Byz.Gr. *«γαϊδάριον» gaϊdárion* (neut.) --> _donkey_ < Ar. غيذار (ghaydhaar), _donkey_.

*«Φάλαινα»* [ˈfa.le.na] (fem.) --> _whale_; used for the extremely obese person < Classical fem. noun *«φάλ(λ)αινᾱ» pʰắl(l)ai̯nā* --> _(init.) monster, (later) whale_ (the length of the syllable with geminate -λλ- -ll- is metrically ascertained) < Classical masc. noun *«φαλλός» pʰăllós* --> _phallus, membrum virile_ (of unknown etymology, φάλλαινα is a cognate because of its body shape).

*«Φίδι»* [ˈfi.ði] (neut.) --> _snake_; used for the sly, calculatinɡ, sneaky person < aphetism of Byz. Gr. neut. diminutive *«ὀφίδιον» ophídion* (idem) < Classical 3rd declension masc. noun *«ὄφις» ópʰis* (nom. sinɡ.), *«ὄφεως» ópʰĕōs* (ɡen. sinɡ.).

*«Σκουλήκι»* [skuˈli.ki] (neut.) --> _worm_; used for for the bad, sleazy and sneaky person, the snot < diminutive of Byz. Gr. masc. noun *«σκώληκας» skṓlēkas* and *«σκούληκας» skoúlēkas* (idem) < Classical 3rd declension masc. noun *«σκώληξ» skṓleks* (nom. sinɡ.), *«σκώληκος» skṓlēkŏs* (ɡen. sinɡ.).

*«Τσιμπούρι»* [ʦ͡imˈbu.ɾi] (neut.) --> _tick_ and *«βδέλλα»* [ˈvðe.la] (fem.) --> _leech_; used for persons who live off others, or persons who are difficult to get rid off.
-*«Τσιμπούρι»* [ʦ͡imˈbu.ɾi] (neut.) < Byz. Gr. neuter diminutive *«τσιμούριν» tsimoúrin* --> _tick_ which became *«τσιμπούριν» tsimpoúrin* after contamination with the v. *«τσιμπώ» *[ʦ͡imˈbɔ]*** < Classical fem. noun *«κίμμυρος» kímmurŏs* --> _tick_, with palatalization and tsitakism of the initial velar plosive, of unknown etymology.
-*«βδέλλα»* [ˈvðe.la] (fem.) < Classical fem. noun *«βδέλλᾱ» bdéllā* --> _leech_, deverbative from the v. *«βδάλλω» bdắllō* --> _to milk (cows)_ (possibly Pre-Greek).

***From Byz. Gr. v. *«τσιμπῶ» ʦimpô* and *«τσιμπίζω» ʦimpízō* < Classical v. *«ἐξεμπίζω» ĕksĕmpízō* --> _to sting_ < preposition & prefix *«ἐκ» ĕk* which before a vowel becomes *«ἐξ» ĕks* + Classical 3rd declension fem. noun *«ἐμπίς» ĕmpís* (nom. sing.), *«ἐμπίδος» ĕmpídŏs* (gen. sing.) --> _gnat_, with popular derivation from *«ἐμπίνω» ĕmpínō* --> _to drink oneself full_ (in the case of gnats, 'full of blood') < prefix & preposition *«ἐν» ĕn* which before labials in assimilated into *«ἐμ» ĕm* + v. *«πίνω» pínō*.


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## Penyafort

*Catalan*:

These are basically rather mild insults for a foolish person, a dimwit, or someone who gets easily distracted.

*- bleda *("chard") --Not the same vegetable, but related to the Greek bliton mentioned above by apmoy70. One can even emphasize it and say *bleda asolellada *"chard in the sun", usually for women who are very dumb or sluggish.

*- fava *("broad bean"), maybe related to the fact that it's a slang word too for the glans.

*- pastanaga *("carrot")

They can be regarded as a bit dated for some speakers, though.

One that is still in use for someone who is clumsy or bad at playing football, for instance:

*- patata *("potato")

There are probably a few more I can't come up with now, but not that many. And I can't think of any with fruits, which seem mainly reserved in slang for parts of the body.


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## Welsh_Sion

zaffy said:


> So if I say I saw a few turnips, could that mean I saw a few Welsh people?



Apologies, that wasn't very clear. Doubtless our enemies can insult us with any particular epithet(s) of their choosing - including turnips. (That would include anyone else being called that in English, not just the Welsh).

But I was highlighting specifically the *leek muncher/chewer/eater*, as this reflects on one of our national symbols, *the leek, *which all good Welsh people wear on National Day (1 March) life-size or as small adornment/piece of jewellery and/or eat it raw (like the Welsh Guards do) or have it as leek soup. Some of my compatriots attend rugby matches with large, inflatable ones, too ...

Sorry for any ambiguity.

I can also add that in Welsh we can refer to a bald guy as a '*pen nionyn*' = 'an onion head'.

And in English *'a couch potato'* is not said pleasantly of any individual. (There's thread on this on WR and many languages, incl. my 1st feature this vegetable for this kind of person.) Not to mention *'a Murphy'* being another name for *a potato *and *an Irishman* (Again, derogatory.)



Penyafort said:


> *Catalan*:
> 
> There are probably a few more I can't come up with now, but not that many. And I can't think of any with fruits, which seem mainly reserved in slang for parts of the body.



Could you not call someone a bit of* 'a banana'* or* 'bananas' *if they were a little odd or crazy, as they do in English? (We don't in Welsh ...)


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## alfaalfa

Ciao,
Italian:
_testa _(head) _di rapa _(turnip)! > you, block head!
the same:
_zuccone _(big pumpkin)!

_gramigna > _Bermuda grass:  meaning a person (or more) too annoying, irritating and unwelcome.


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## Penyafort

Welsh_Sion said:


> Could you not call someone a bit of* 'a banana'* or* 'bananas' *if they were a little odd or crazy, as they do in English? (We don't in Welsh ...)



Hmmm, no.  

In fact, the term _banana _is rather uncommon in Spain compared to the words *plátano *(Spanish) or *plàtan *(Catalan).


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## apmoy70

Just realized that I prattled aimlessly, the OP asked for vegetables and fruits only...well...apologies


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## Circunflejo

Some in Spanish: 

Melón: something like clumsy.
Calabacín (zucchini) and calabaza (pumpkin) both of them meaning inept and ignorant.
Derived from berza (collard), there's berzotas: ignorant, fool.
Castaña (chestnut): boring, annoying.

Not an insult by itself but tonto del haba would be really stupid while tonto would be just stupid. Haba=faba bean.


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## elroy

In Palestinian Arabic:

بسواش بصلة ("He's not worth an onion") means "He's a lowlife."
فستق فاضي ("empty peanut") means "stupid, dumb, unintelligent."
بلا كذا بلا بطيخ (الشام) ("No X, no (Syrian) watermelon") is a way to dismiss or deride something.

(Side note: The Arabic word for "fava beans" is فول, pronounced like "fool." )


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## Perseas

In Greek:

Someone who is not clever has_ *IQ ραδικιού*_ (IQ of a chicory).
'IQ' and 'ραδικιού' [raδicú] make rhyme in Greek.

*κολοκύθας* [kolociθas] means stupid/foolish
κολοκύθα is pumpkin.

Except potato *πατάτα* means blunder/embarassing mistake.


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## apmoy70

^^
You made me remember one of the names some professors at uni used all the time for us students: 
*«Αποκολοκύνθωσις»* [a.pɔ.kɔ.lɔˈcin.θɔ.sis] (fem.), which sounds like a life-threateninɡ disease, but it just means _incucurbitasis_ (or somethinɡ like that) ie _complete intellectual disability_ (lit. _to be as clever as a pumpkin_).


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## Trisia

In Romanian, the very informal and quite popular "*ești varză*" (literally "you're cabbage") is used when someone made a mess of things. 
I'd say "daft" is probably the closest in meaning and range.

A lot more dated, "*bostan*" (regionalism for pumpkin and/or watermelon) and "*tărtăcuță*" (a diminutive for a hollowed-out pumpkin) can be used to refer to someone's head.

We also have the Slavic "tigvă", but I've never seen it used as an insult (though it's in the dictionary as such), only to mean a human or animal skull.


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## Welsh_Sion

@Trisia 

We also have the Slavic "tigvă", but I've never seen it used as an insult (though it's in the dictionary as such), only to mean a human or animal skull.

___________

A calque of this? 

numbskull | Origin and meaning of numbskull by Online Etymology Dictionary


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## Şafak

Awwal12 said:


> Using animal names as insults is almost universal in human languages (the full list would be extremely long). Vegetables are something rare indeed, though. At least I cannot think about anything of that kind in Russian.



I believe I have heard "редиска" (radish) as an insult a couple of times.


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## Encolpius

*Hungarian *--- no fruit or vegetable related insults in Hungarian


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## Awwal12

Jennifer Weiss said:


> I believe I have heard "редиска" (radish) as an insult a couple of times.


Ah yes, that's true.  The word was a made-up criminal slang term in "Gentlemen of Fortune" comedy film (1973), and since the film was immensely popular in the USSR, the word came into some limited use as well. The meaning, as it's stated in the film, is "bad man".


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## bearded

For* Italian* I will add:

_Finocchio _(literally: fennel) = faggot
(maybe a euphemism from Southern slang _femminicchio/fimminicchio = _effeminate man).


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## DEHER

In French "un navet" (a turnip) is a very bad film...


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## Stoggler

Welsh_Sion said:


> *Vegetables *- seems *'turnip'* is a favourite here



Perhaps the most famous usage of ‘turnip’ as an insult in England was following (yet another) ignominious crashing out of an international football tournament, this time in the European Championships in Sweden in 1992.  The Sun newspaper had this headline inside the paper following a defeat by the host nation Sweden:



And it was the manager (ie the head coach) Graham Taylor who took the brunt of the opprobrium in the press; when he was finally sacked from the post the following year, this was the front page of The Sun:


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## Dymn

Penyafort said:


> *- fava *("broad bean"), maybe related to the fact that it's a slang word too for the glans.


Maybe it's more common as _"cap de fava" (cap _= head). Also _favades_ is a word for "bullshit" in Valencia.


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## sound shift

Stoggler said:


> Perhaps the most famous usage of ‘turnip’ as an insult in England was following (yet another) ignominious crashing out of an international football tournament, this time in the European Championships in Sweden in 1992.  The Sun newspaper had this headline inside the paper following a defeat by the host nation Sweden:
> 
> View attachment 44850


I remember that, but the headline has always struck me as rather forced, as I had never heard the word "turnip" used as an insult (and I still haven't).


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## Nanon

French:
_Patate _(colloquial - the standard term for potato _- pomme de terre -_ doesn't work here) is a stupid or clumsy person. Mostly used in such phrases as _Va donc, eh, patate_ - go on, you ***!
Sometimes heard with bananas, too: Va donc, eh, banane! (just meaning stupid or clumsy, not crazy).

_Asperge _(asparagus) - a very tall and thin person

_Feuille de chou_ (a cabbage leaf) - a mediocre or insignificant newspaper

_Poire _(pear) - a gullible person, a sucker

_Pomme _(apple), when used in the phrase _la reine des pommes_ (the queen of apples) - a naive person

_Courge _(pumpkin) - a stupid person, mostly used for females, maybe because _courge _is feminine - yet _patate _or _poire _are also feminine but they apply to anybody

_Noix _(walnut, walnuts) - euphemism for buttocks or testicles. _À la noix_ is used as an adjective for something crappy

_Fayot _(colloquial for _bean_) - a bootlicker

_Salade _(salad or lettuce) - may mean lies or bullshit when used in plural (_salades_)


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## velisarius

Parsley is a herb that seems to turn up in nearly every Greek savoury dish. In Greek, _μαϊντανός_ (parsley) can be used metaphorically to refer to someone who is over-exposed, who tends to turns up everywhere, especially the sort of minor celebrity who appears on all the talk shows and interviews and seems to have a ready opinion about everything under the sun. 


_

_


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## bearded

velisarius said:


> who tends to turns up everywhere...


We,too, often compare such people to parsley (in Italian _prezzémolo_), e.g. ''_è come il prezzemolo_''_ = _he is like parsley.  However, we do not use the word directly as an epithet for a person (we cannot say ''he is (a)parsley'').


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## velisarius

A nice example here, two "personalities" squabbling over who is the "parsley":

Ηλιάκη σε Πουνέντη: «Εσύ είσαι ο μαϊντανός της παρέας»!


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## DEHER

An English "twit" or "dope" is a French "truffle"(=truffe)


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## ancalimon

Turkish
Kabak (Squash, also found in "Bal Kabağı">Pumpkin) : bald


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## jazyk

In Brazil calling somebody a banana means they are weaklings/sissies and calling them fruta (fruit) means they are fruity/gay.


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## DEHER

Une courge = a marrow is an idiot...


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## clamor

In Armenian we use (in colloquial language) _khiyar_ (cucumber) as an insult.


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## Torontal

Encolpius said:


> *Hungarian *--- no fruit or vegetable related insults in Hungarian



What about those derived from _tök (_marrow): like _tökfej _(marrow head)_, tökfilkó _(marrow jack),_ tökkelütött _(hit by marrow),_ tejbetök _(marrow-in-milk, originally a dish)?  Though these are all quite mild insults for calling someone idiot.
I've also heard _dinnye_ (melon) in the same sense, but I think it is rare.

And we have the word _zöldség_ (vegetable) itself, with the secondary meaning of "nonsense, foolishness, rubbish, codswallop".


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## Encolpius

tökfej and the other examples are not vegetables, only compounds with tök.   
Dinny might work. never heard.


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## marco_2

zaffy said:


> In Polish:
> 
> Tu buraku! = You beetroot! (primitive, redneck, yahoo)



As far as Polish is concerned, we also have two expressions connected with cabbage:

*kapuściana głowa *(lit.: cabbage head) and even stronger *głąb *(cabbage heart, stump /of a cabbage/) - both mean a stupid person, a weenie.

P.S. Sometimes we say *główka (jak) makówka *(a head like a poppyhead) which can mean that someone has a pretty head but without brain.


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## congergs

Just like Armenians next door we say "hıyar" (cucumber) in Turkish.


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## kloie

jazyk said:


> In Brazil calling somebody a banana means they are weaklings/sissies and calling them fruta (fruit) means they are fruity/gay.


That's weird because in America we use fruit too or fruitcake for a gay man!


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## Awwal12

marco_2 said:


> *kapuściana głowa *(lit.: cabbage head)


On a sidenote: Russian uses кочан (kochán, "head (of cabbage)") to rudely denote someone's head, but not the person himself.


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