Extremely vulgar term for female genitalia; top-tier offensive in English.
Cunt is a vulgar word for the female genitals, and in Britain it doubles as one of the harshest things you can call a person — most often a man. That double life is why it sits where it sits: at once a body word and a person insult.
In Ofcom’s 2016 public sorting of roughly 150 words, it landed in the “strongest” tier for general swearing — a tier with only three members: cunt, fuck and motherfucker.
One syllable, rhyming with “hunt”: a hard k, a short “uh”, and an -nt that shuts the word off like a door. There is nothing in it to soften — no tail, no glide — which is part of why it lands harder in the mouth than longer swear words.
Bare. Rarely an exclamation on its own; unlike fuck, it does not do punctuation duty well.
In a sentence. The standard British use is as a noun for a person — “he’s a cunt” — aimed at men far more than at women.
Directed. “You cunt”, said in anger to someone’s face, is about as escalatory as a single word gets in Britain.
Softened. Britain never developed a comfortable minced version the way “effing” serves fuck. The standard dodge is to not say it at all and call it “the c-word”.
Ofcom’s tiers translate into broadcast practice: strongest-tier words are post-watershed material (after 9pm), and even then context decides — channel, speaker, intent, and whether an apology follows. Ofcom’s 2021 and 2026 waves found audiences more relaxed about general swearing and more concerned about discriminatory language, but the broad picture for this word has not changed.
In the US academic ratings collected by Beers Fägersten, cunt scored 6.6 out of 10 for offensiveness — the highest general swear word on that list, above fuck at 5.0. There is no fine attached to it anywhere in the English-speaking record this board draws on; its cost is professional and social, and it is the reference point for “worst swear word” in British media coverage.
The GIF on this page is Begbie in Trainspotting (1996), in the pub confrontation, delivering the line as captioned: “No cunt leaves here till we find out what cunt did it” — the word used twice in one sentence, both times at people.
In Bruges (2008) gives the directed form its showcase: Ralph Fiennes’ Harry Waters, on the phone — “You’re a cunt. You’re a cunt now, you’ve always been a cunt…”
Native Shorts — to be collected
How is it really pronounced — and where do you actually use it?
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Evidence: Measured — Ofcom strongest tier for general swearing (2016).