Dictionary

shithole en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈʃɪt.hoʊl/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Compound of shit + hole.

Meanings

1. (derogatory, literally, vulgar) The anus.
   • "You know," he said at last, "I wish you'd just look how that little dog's shithole opens up every time he barks." 1987, Charles East, The New writers of the South: a fiction anthology, page 187:
   • . 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 . 2014, Laetitia Zecchini, Arun Kolatkar and Literary Modernism in India: Moving Lines, →ISBN, page 148:
   • “When it come,” Jamal said, “we just gotta pray suckas don't go mad dog—tearin' each other whole new shitholes.” 2011, Robert Gleason, End of Days: A Novel, →ISBN:
2. (derogatory, literally, vulgar) The anus. ▸ A wretched or despicable person.
   • 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. 2012, Michael J., Quadrangulation, →ISBN:
   • 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. 2013, Mark Collar, Those Forest Men, page 61:
   • . "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." 1999, Fall to Grace, →ISBN, page 228:
3. (derogatory, literally, vulgar) A hole into which one defecates or dumps excrement.
   • 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." 2016, Hopeless but Optimistic, →ISBN, page 58:
   • 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'. 1989, John Orr, Tragic Drama and Modern Society, →ISBN, page 279:
   • Too tired to run anymore. Hungry for the end. His feet scrambled. Like a cat digging a shithole. 1997, C. N. Hetzner, In the War for Peace: A Novel, page 298:
   • Two of them were dragging a new member of the dead towards the cart by the shithole. 2000, Garry Satherley, The arch-traitor's lament, page 185:
   • 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? 1987, Mark C. Taylor, Altarity, →ISBN, page 3:
4. (derogatory, figuratively, literally, vulgar) A hole into which one defecates or dumps excrement. ▸ A very dirty, poor, and unpleasant place.
   • Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here? 2018 January 12, Donald Trump, quotee, “Trump derides protections for immigrants from 'shithole' countries”, in Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 Mar 2023:
   • 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? 1952, Ralph Leveridge, Walk on the water, page 157:
   • “What is this shithole?” General Villa was disgusted with his accommodations. 2010, Neftalí G. García, The Mexican Revolution: Legacy of Courage, →ISBN, page 104:
5. (derogatory, figuratively, literally, vulgar) A hole into which one defecates or dumps excrement. ▸ A dysfunctional state.
   • 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. 2009, Duncan Sarkies, Two Little Boys, →ISBN:
   • 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. 2011, John Milius, Raymond Benson, Homefront: The Voice of Freedom, →ISBN, page 13:
   • 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. 2013, M. A. Fricker, Programmed Sheep, →ISBN:

Forms

Deriveds

shitholer · McShithole

Synonyms

shitpit · pisshole

Translations (23)

he חור (dirty or unpleasant place) · ru воню́чая дыра́ (dirty or unpleasant place) · hu szarfészek (dirty or unpleasant place) · es cagadero (dirty or unpleasant place) · no møkkahol (dirty or unpleasant place) · sv skithål (dirty or unpleasant place) · he מזבלה (dirty or unpleasant place) · fi persereikä (dirty or unpleasant place) · ru дерьмо́вая дыра́ (dirty or unpleasant place) · fi persläpi (dirty or unpleasant place) · es antro (dirty or unpleasant place) · pt muquifo (dirty or unpleasant place) · sv skitställe (dirty or unpleasant place) · ru жо́па (dirty or unpleasant place) · fr trou à rats (dirty or unpleasant place) · pl zadupie (dirty or unpleasant place) · ru сра́ная дыра́ (dirty or unpleasant place) · es pocilga (dirty or unpleasant place) · el κωλόμερος (dirty or unpleasant place) · es cuchitril (dirty or unpleasant place) · ru говённая дыра́ (dirty or unpleasant place) · de Dreckloch (dirty or unpleasant place) · fr trou paumé (dirty or unpleasant place)