What does “хреновый” mean in English?
It means lousy or bad, often used to describe something disappointing. The literal translation relates to horseradish, but that's not the focus here.
Literally “horseradish-related”
It's similar to calling something shit in English and is typically used in informal contexts. You'll hear it as a general insult or expression of dissatisfaction.
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Related Russian words
отстой
2/5 · Coarseotstoy
It refers to something lousy or rubbish. The literal translation is 'sediment,' but here it’s about quality.
ни фига
2/5 · Coarseni figa
It means 'nothing at all' or can express surprise. The full phrase gives it more context in conversation.
офигеть
2/5 · Coarseofiget
This means to express amazement, disbelief, or indignation. It's a softer way to react to something surprising or outrageous.
хрен
2/5 · Coarsekhren
This term literally means 'horseradish' but is often used as a mild-to-coarse substitute for stronger swearing, especially in sexual contexts.
About this data
Swear Atlas is a source-attested, AI-curated reference — not a native-speaker-certified dictionary. Meanings and the 1–5 Burn Rating are approximate editorial assessments that vary with context, region, tone and speaker. Inclusion of a word does not constitute endorsement of its use.
The literal gloss is a short editorial translation to show word-for-word sense, not an etymological claim.
“Sounds like” is an English-friendly approximation of how the word sounds, not an authoritative pronunciation. Where shown, the romanisation is a conventional Latin-script transliteration of the original spelling.
Term attested via Viddexa SafeText, FlacSy/BadWords (MIT, MIT AND CC-BY-4.0). Editorial content © Swear Atlas.