ichipato

Usage examples

• Ulichipato, iwe mwaume!
  You're a pussy, you man! (used as an insult implying cowardice)
• Tatwalumbulula ichipato muli bantu.
  We don't talk about pussy among people (i.e., not in public).

Etymology

"Ichipato" is a Bemba (Bantu, Zambia) vulgar term for the female genitalia, distinct in register and tone from the more common "chinena." The prefix "ichi-" belongs to Bemba's chi/i noun class, which frequently covers concrete objects and anatomical parts. The root "-pato" is thought to relate to a notion of a flat or open surface, a semantic pattern found in several neighboring Bantu languages for anatomical vocabulary. The term is somewhat more regional in distribution than "chinena" and tends to appear more in rural Northern Province speech.

Cultural notes

While both "ichipato" and "chinena" refer to the same body part in Bemba, "ichipato" carries a slightly more rural or dialectal flavour and is more commonly heard in the Northern Province than in the urban Copperbelt. Like all sexual vocabulary in Bemba culture, the word is strongly taboo in intergenerational or mixed-gender formal settings. It is also used figuratively as an insult questioning a man's courage, paralleling the English use of "pussy" to mean cowardly.

Same meaning, other languages

Accuracy

33% of 6 voters say this translation is accurate.