shithole

shithole

English

Etymology

shit +‎ hole

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃɪthoʊl/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

Noun

shithole (plural shitholes) (vulgar)

1. (derogatory) A very dirty, poor or unpleasant place.

   Synonym: pisshole

   • 1952, Ralph Leveridge, Walk on the water, page 157:

     Isn't it enough I sit in this shithole week after week?— wanting to go home and knowing there's not a damn thing to go home to?

   • 2010, Neftalí G. García, The Mexican Revolution: Legacy of Courage, →ISBN, page 104:

     “What is this shithole?” General Villa was disgusted with his accommodations.

2. A dysfunctional place.
   • 2009, Duncan Sarkies, Two Little Boys, →ISBN:

     God is pulling me up and up and away from this shithole of a life, and as I get pulled up through the water I think, Mum and Dad, I'll miss you.

   • 2011, John Milius & Raymond Benson, Homefront: The Voice of Freedom, →ISBN, page 13:

     The economy is in the shithole, unemployment is 30-something %, I have no savings, no alternate plan . . . and I'rn going to quit my job. And you know what? It's going to feel damned good.

   • 2013, M. A. Fricker, Programmed Sheep, →ISBN:

     Once your two weeks are over, you will soon be back at that shithole of a job, mixing with all the lowlife sheep of this earth.

   • 2018 January 12, quoting Donald Trump, “Trump derides protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries”, in Washington Post:

     Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?

3. A hole into which one defecates or dumps excrement.
   • 1987, Mark C. Taylor, Altarity, →ISBN, page 3:

     Perhaps Derrida is recalling Rembrandt's drawing Abraham's Sacrifice. If this is the work of art, why "tear it to pieces" (dechirer) and ram it down the shithole? Is Abraham, father of the Jewish faith, a shit, perhaps the shit that the System proper must flush away?

   • 1989, John Orr, Tragic Drama and Modern Society, →ISBN, page 279:

     Two Roman soldiers digging latrines joke about later recounting the experience to their children back home, the ritual of having 'dug a shithole on the edge of the world'.

   • 1997, C. N. Hetzner, In the War for Peace: A Novel, page 298:

     Too tired to run anymore. Hungry for the end. His feet scrambled. Like a cat digging a shithole.

   • 2000, Garry Satherley, The arch-traitor's lament, page 185:

     Two of them were dragging a new member of the dead towards the cart by the shithole.

   • 2016, Hopeless but Optimistic, →ISBN, page 58:

     The latrine is bright white and clean to a fault, an almost garish contrast to the dark, hardscrabble forward operating base just beyond the metal doors. The two young soldiers are shaving at the long line of sinks and mirrors. One says, "Man, I had a dream last night I was in the shithole."

4. The anus.
   • 1987, Charles East, The New writers of the South: a fiction anthology, page 187:

     "You know," he said at last, "I wish you'd just look how that little dog's shithole opens up every time he barks."

   • 2011, Robert Gleason, End of Days: A Novel, →ISBN:

     “When it come,” Jamal said, “we just gotta pray suckas don't go mad dog—tearin' each other whole new shitholes.”

   • 2014, Laetitia Zecchini, Arun Kolatkar and Literary Modernism in India: Moving Lines, →ISBN, page 148:

     . In 'The Shit Sermon', where a drunk delivers a philippic against Bombay, shit pervades the text, and is in fact irreverently correlated with God: God is great, he says. He has given all his creatures, great and small, two holes: a feedhole and a shithole, and he will provide .

5. An unpleasant or despicable person.
   • 1999, Fall to Grace, →ISBN, page 228:

     . "What a sorry-looking son-of-a-bitch," said one of the officers. "We aren't going to win this war with shitholes like this out there."

   • 2012, Michael J., Quadrangulation, →ISBN:

     That girl, I've known her since we were teenagers, a sweeter, more innocent decent girl you couldn't wish to find .And you've dirtied her, you shithole.

   • 2013, Mark Collar, Those Forest Men, page 61:

     He did it by finding the best. The players that other teams had forgotten, ignored or dismissed as past their best. Then I would scream, kick their arses, motivate the shitholes and care for them in equal measures.

Synonyms

• shitpit

Translations

dirty or unpleasant place

Arabic: please add this translation if you can Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Esperanto: please add this translation if you can Finnish: persläpi (fi), persereikä (fi) French: trou à rats m, trou paumé m German: Dreckloch n Greek: κωλόμερος n (kolómeros) Hebrew: חור‎ (he) m (khor), מזבלה‎ (he) f (mizbalá) Hungarian: szarfészek Italian: please add this translation if you can Portuguese: muquifo (pt) m Russian: воню́чая дыра́ f (vonjúčaja dyrá), жо́па (ru) f (žópa), сра́ная дыра́ f (sránaja dyrá), говённая дыра́ f (govjónnaja dyrá), дерьмо́вая дыра́ f (derʹmóvaja dyrá), жо́па ми́ра (ru) (žópa míra) (colloquial, literally "the ass(hole) of the world")) Spanish: cuchitril (es) m, antro (es) m Swahili: please add this translation if you can Swedish: skitställe n

anus — see asshole

unpleasant person — see asshole

Further reading

• 2018 January 12, Victor Mair, "Translating Trump" on Language Log (discussing translations of "shithole countries")
• shithole at OneLook Dictionary Search
• “shithole”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
• “shithole” in Oxford Learner's Dictionaries

Anagrams

• hotelish