bomboclat

What does bomboclat mean?

Bomboclat is a Jamaican profanity similar in meaning and function to the f-word. In Internet slang, it is a nonsense term, captioning images, videos, or other content thought of as unusual in some way. It sometimes means “attractive” or “impressive.” The word is also commonly spelled bumboclaat.

Examples of bomboclat

My flight was suppose to land at 2:15 and I’m just getting off my flight!! Wat in the bomboclat!!!
—@dearryen, Threads, 7 Jul. 2023

Dem bomboclat government brutalising de people! We need change #ZimbabweanLivesMatter
—@tarielissa, X (formerly Twitter), 7 Aug. 2020

“I’m coming back to deal with this shit myself since you’re TOO BUMBOCLAT STUPID TO GET THE JOB DONE!!” Dex yelled, hanging up the phone.
—Sharifa D., Her Loves Saved Him, The Streets Made Him 2: Hailee & Dionne, 17 Sep. 2019

Where does bomboclat come from?

Bomboclat comes from Jamaican English. The term has been recorded since the 1950s but likely was in use before then. It is based on bumbo, a coarse patois term for female genitalia, and claat, a Jamaican type of cloth. Combined, the words literally mean “menstrual cloth,” but early evidence for bomboclat suggests it has denigrated someone or something as “contemptible” from or close to the start. (Associated with taboo subjects, hygiene has long been a source of profanity.) Functioning as an adjective, noun, and interjection, the word has the same range and intensity in Jamaican English as English swear words such as the f-word.

Bomboclat received mainstream attention in 2014 after Rob Ford—then mayor of Toronto, which has a large Caribbean population—controversially used the word in a rant. In September 2019, it went viral on social media after a then-Twitter user posted “bomboclaat” as a seemingly random caption to a meme image. Discussion ensued about apparent confusion of bomboclat with sco pu tu mana, an Internet nonsense phrase popularized by a Ghanaian musician in April of 2019. In this way, it likely influenced subsequent Internet gibberish terms associated with Generation Alpha and sometimes called “brain rot,” including gyatt, skibidi, and Fanum tax.

How is bomboclat used?

Bomboclat remains a vulgar slang term in Jamaican English (as well as other English-based creoles throughout the world). Thanks to its popularity in 2019, bomboclat is also commonly used in Internet slang as a nonsense term and meme, frequently appearing as a single-word caption to content (often in the form of a series of related images) that the user finds weird, bizarre, jarring, or funny in some way. Often, it is posted randomly on its own. The popularity of the online use of bomboclat has caused its meaning to broaden to include “attractive, impressive, excellent.”

Of course, as a vulgarism, it can be considered very offensive. Use of the term without regard for its Jamaican English origins may also be seen as culturally insensitive or appropriative.