Putada: Spain's Everyday Way of Saying That Sucks
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A Spaniard hears your flight was cancelled and says joder, qué putada. They are not swearing at you. They are sympathising, and in Spain this is one of the most common ways to do it.
The word comes from a slur and functions as almost nothing of the kind. That gap is exactly what learners get wrong, in both directions.
The short answer
Putada is Spanish from Spain for a rotten piece of luck or a dirty trick. Qué putada means that sucks, what a pain, what rotten luck. It is vulgar in origin but everyday in use.
Two things it can mean
Bad luck that happened to you
Me han quitado las vacaciones de agosto.
Joder, qué putada.They've taken away my August holidays. / God, that sucks.
Nobody did this on purpose. Qué putada here is pure sympathy, the Spanish equivalent of "that's rough". This is the majority of all uses.
Something somebody did to you
Me hizo una putada avisando el día antes.
He really did me dirty telling me the day before.
With hacer, it becomes deliberate: a dirty trick, a nasty move. Hacer una putada a alguien is an accusation, and it lands harder than the bare exclamation.
How vulgar is it, really
The honest answer: less than its parts suggest, more than zero.
Putada is built on puta, a slur for a sex worker, and the suffix -ada, which turns a noun into "a thing of that kind" or "a blow of that kind", the same suffix in patada and cabezada. Structurally it is "a whore of a thing".
But Spanish from Spain long ago stripped this family of most of its charge. Puta appears in de puta madre (brilliant, excellent) and pasarlo puta (to have an awful time), and neither is about sex work. Putada sits in the same drawer as joder and coño: freely said among friends, on television after nine, and by grandparents. It stays out of job interviews, formal writing and first meetings with a partner's family.
The trap for learners is symmetrical. Say it in a business meeting and you sound crude. Refuse to recognise it and you will misread ordinary sympathy as an insult.
Related forms
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| qué putada | what rotten luck, that sucks |
| hacer una putada | to do someone dirty |
| vaya putada | same as qué putada, slightly more resigned |
| es una putada, pero... | it's a pain, but..., softening bad news |
| estar de puta pena | to be dreadful, unrelated but same family |
Spain only
In Latin America the puta family keeps far more of its sting, and putada in this casual sympathetic sense is not used. A Mexican says qué gacho or qué mala onda, an Argentinian qué bajón, a Colombian qué boleta or qué pesar. Using qué putada in Bogotá will not read as sympathy.
For more of this register, see what pringao really means and 15 everyday vulgar phrases that define Spanish street culture.
The Spanish people in Spain actually speak
Words like putada are everywhere in real conversation and nowhere in a course. Our Easy Spanish Phrasebook collects 200 essential phrases and expressions in Spanish from Spain, organised by situation. For the unfiltered layer, The Spanish Slang Bundle goes further.
Quick recap
- Meaning: rotten luck, or a dirty trick when paired with hacer.
- Origin: puta plus the suffix -ada, "a blow of that kind", the same suffix as in patada.
- Register: vulgar in origin, ordinary in use among friends, out of place in formal settings.
- Where: Spain. In Latin America the word keeps its sting and this use does not exist.