Swearing and Insults

Swearing occurs quite often in the books in both someone saying a swear word and someone thinking one. Insults also occur just as often.

Popular Swear Words

• Bloody - Is a swear word by itself, "bloody" is also used to enhance or illustrate anger or annoyance (e.g. "blood and bloody ashes" [See blood and ashes], "Bloody women!", "Bloody fools!").
• Flaming - Is a swear word by itself, "flaming" is also used to preface to another word to show potent expression of anger or annoyance (e.g. "Flaming Aes Sedai").
• Blasted - A swear word used in conjunction with another word, similar in usage to "damned" (e.g. "Blasted Dragon Reborn").
• Light - Used when astonished (e.g. "Light help us") or an exclamation (e.g. "Light!").
• Burn (me, you, other person/group/object) - Similar use as damn (e.g. "Damn you", "Burn you") commonly used in response to some upsetting news (e.g. "Burn my bones").

Insults, Curses, and Vulgar Phrases

• Blood and ashes - Expresses anger, disgust, another negative emotion. Commonly intensified by using bloody ("blood and bloody ashes").
• Bloody ox of a thimble-brained man - Combination of insults and swears meaning a big man with a small brain; another way of calling someone an idiot.
• Bilge stone - Sea Folk insult, referring to the waste on board a ship.
• Boneheaded - Idiotic.
• Bull-goose fool - A reckless idiot ("twice he had stepped through a ter'angreal like a bull-goose fool," "still smiling like a bull-goose fool," "a pure bull-goose fool").
• Chit - Derogatory term for girl, used like 'bitch' or 'twit' ("a lazy chit," "you ill-tempered little chit," "if she wore dresses and simpered at him like a brainless chit," etc.).
• Crackbrain - Idiotic or crazy.
• Daughter/Son of the sands - Extreme Sea Folk insult, usually is followed by violence.
• Fish-loving scavenger - Sea Folk insult, probably not as "mild" as Elayne imagines.
• Goat-kissing - Describing someone or something as despicable or annoying (e.g. "Goat-kissing Halfman", "straight through to the goat-kissing ferry," or "sisters mingling with those goat-kissing Asha'man).
• Goat-spawned toad - Generally berating insult.
• Goose-brain - Idiot; also goose-brained.
• Light-blinded fool - A righteous, ignorant, misguided, or stupid person ("If you weren't such a Light blinded fool," or "Burn me for a bloody Light-blinded fool") Also light-blinded idiot.
• Light-forsaken - Something that is desolate or wretched ("Even here in this Light-forsaken corner of the world," or "Light-forsaken axe! Burn me, I wish I had never seen it!")
• Lightskirt - A person who is "easy," or a slut.
• Lummox - An oaf, idiot, or lump of a man; usually with an adjective, such as "addle-brained lummox," "hairy lummox" (one of Faile's insults toward Perrin,) "wool-headed lummox,", or simply "great lummox."
• Milk-faced - Descriptive of a pretty woman, implying she uses her beauty to tempt men ("He wants a milk-faced vixen who runs about half-naked," "that milk-faced chit").
• Milk-hearted - Cowardly, weak, or timid; sometimes used by Aiel to describe wetlanders.
• Mule - Someone who is stubborn is often compared to a mule ("Stubborn as a cross-eyed mule," "surlier than a mule with four stone-bruised hooves," or "mule-headed").
• Mother's milk in a cup - Expression of disgust, anger; an obscenity considered particularly vulgar.
• Muscle-brained cretin - Big, stupid man or one who thinks with his muscles.
• Peace! - Shienaran exclamation of surprise or used like "gosh" ("Peace, but it is good to see you").
• Sheep swallop - As in, "Oh sheep swallop! Sheep swallop and bloody buttered onions!" Meaning unknown beyond being impressively foul language.
• Silverpike - Tairen expression meaning a swarm of small troubles that together create one big one, can mean persistent, immediate trouble ("Samara's a school of silverpike around a chunk of bloody meat").
• Summer ham - Coarse and slightly obscure insult.
• Thieving fisher-bird - Tairen expression for a sneaky thief ("And burn the thieving fisher-bird," "had her flapping like a fisher-bird whose catch had been stolen," "a temper in you like a fisher-bird with a bone in its throat," "that fool girl has less brains than a fisher-bird").
• Treekillers - Aiel epithet for Cairhienin.
• Witches/Tar Valon witches - Epithet used to refer to Aes Sedai, especially common among Whitecloaks.
• Wooden-headed buffoon - An idiot.
• Woolhead - A pejorative term used by or about Two Rivers folk, connoting one who stubbornly denies the obvious or the truth.. A common insult used extensively, wool-headed used just as frequently, often as a "wool-headed fool" or "wool-headed idiot," referring to an idiot mistake or just a "wool-headed man."

Obsolete Curses

• Tsag - An obscenity uttered by Sammael, possibly from the Old Tongue.
• Bajad drovja - Another curse from the lips of Sammael, presumably from the Age of Legends.
• kjasic - An expletive spoken by Sammael used as an adjective: "in the this kjasic flyspeck of a city!"