French · France · Belgium · Switzerland

bordel

/bɔʁ.dɛl/

Listen to how locals say it.

Meaning

A brothel; colloquially “a bloody mess”, and as an interjection roughly “bloody hell!”.Machine-assisted translation

Pronunciation

IPA: /bɔʁ.dɛl/

“bor-DEL”.

Intensity

SWEAR LEVEL

Rated in-culture by native reviewers, on three separate axes.

VulgarityVery Strong

How taboo the word itself is inside its own culture.

AggressivenessRude

How far it can go when aimed at a person.

Social riskRude

What the speaker risks saying it to a stranger on the street.

How common

Social Risk

Where it lands, situation by situation. Shape and colour both carry the value.

With friendsOK
At schoolAvoid
At workDependsFine in a meeting in the sense of “a mess”, avoided as an exclamation.
On the streetOK
OnlineOK

OK
Depends
Avoid

Verification

Not verified yetWaiting for native review

Published after an automated pre-check. No native reviewer has confirmed it yet.

A correction desk opens once native review starts. Until then this page records what the sources say.

How it's used

The “mess” sense is near-neutral in speech; the bare interjection is squarely vulgar. Often stacked as “putain de bordel”.Machine-assisted translation

Cultural context

Wiktionary separates the informal “brothel” noun, the colloquial “bloody mess” sense and the vulgar interjection.Machine-assisted translation

Literal meaning

brothel

When to avoid it

Situations where people would rather you did not say it.

At school — Avoid
At work — Depends. Fine in a meeting in the sense of “a mess”, avoided as an exclamation.

Sources

Every claim on this page traces back to these entries.

bordel — English Wiktionary (French)Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · summarised and translated here · accessed 2026-08-28
bordel — Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary)Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · summarised and translated here · accessed 2026-08-28

Passages derived from these dictionary entries are redistributed under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.