Turkish · Exclamations
Tüh!
TEW · /tyh/
Darn! / Shoot! / Dang it!
1/5 Grandma-safe
mild, playful; fine on daytime TV
Literally
"(the sound of a small spit)"
Word-for-word — which is rarely what it means.
How to use it
Mild self-directed regret, like a tut — a mimed little spit of annoyance at a small miss. "Tüh tüh tüh" for a run of bad luck. Totally clean; you can say it to your grandmother, and she'll say it back. "Tüh be, az kalmıştı."
Heard in the wild
Tüh! Otobüsü kaçırdım.
Darn! I missed the bus.
Where it lands
Turkey-wide; universal
Quick answers
- What does "Tüh!" mean?
- In Turkish, "Tüh!" means "Darn! / Shoot! / Dang it!". Literally it's "(the sound of a small spit)". Mild self-directed regret, like a tut — a mimed little spit of annoyance at a small miss. "Tüh tüh tüh" for a run of bad luck. Totally clean; you can say it to your grandmother, and she'll say it back. "Tüh be, az kalmıştı."
- Is "Tüh!" offensive?
- It's on the mild end — 1/5 (Grandma-safe) on the Punch-o-Meter. mild, playful; fine on daytime TV.
- How do you pronounce "Tüh!"?
- Say it "TEW" — capitals mark the stressed syllable. In IPA: tyh.
Related in Turkish
The same idea, elsewhere
Via concepts like "Damn".
- French Putain ! Damn! / F***! / The all-purpose intensifier — punctuation, really
- German Scheiße! Shit! / Damn! — the all-purpose German expletive
- Greek γαμώτο Damn it! / Dammit!
- Italian Cazzo! Fuck! / Damn! / The all-purpose Italian curse.
- Japanese くそ Damn! / Crap! / Shit!
- Korean 씨발 Fuck / fucking hell — the load-bearing Korean curse.
- Polish kurwa Fuck / damn / shit — the load-bearing word of Polish, and its most common comma.
- Portuguese Porra! Damn! / Fuck! — but mostly used as pure punctuation
Reviewed by native speakers. Rate it differently? Tell us what we got wrong.