Smutskasta means to smear, slander or defame someone (the legal term for defamation in Swedish is instead förtal).

It’s been part of the Swedish language since at least 1836 and literally means “dirt throwing”. Picture a politician throwing figurative dirt at a political opponent and you’ll have a good idea of what smutskasta is – which, incidentally, is why we’re talking about this word today.

A new documentary by Swedish broadcaster TV4’s Kalla Fakta programme revealed that the far-right Sweden Democrats operate a troll factory which, via anonymous accounts, orchestrate social media campaigns to smutskasta political opponents (and, controversially, allies). 

If you want to read more about that, you can do so here, but let’s now talk about the actual word instead.

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The first part, smuts, means dirt or filth as you may have guessed, and comes from the Yiddish shmuts or German Schmutz.

The adjective, smutsig, can refer to a person or an inanimate object (mina kläder är smutsiga – my clothes are dirty; jag smutsade ner mig när jag jobbade i trädgården – I got dirty when working in the garden). If a room is simply untidy but not necessarily filthy or with any visible stains, you might instead say it’s ostädat (not cleaned) or rörigt (messy).  

The second part, kasta, means to throw. You can, among other things, kasta en boll (throw a ball), kasta bort soporna (throw away the rubbish), kasta ett öga på någonting (throw an eye on something – i.e. take a quick look at something), kasta i sig maten (gulp down the food), kasta loss (ropes away or up-anchor, when a boat leaves the harbour) or kasta upp (throw up – also kräkas in Swedish).

An interesting linguistic quirk means that if you want to say “smear” in the figurative sense you should say smutskasta, but if you want to talk about actually throwing dirt, it will sound more correct to the ears of Swedes to swap the words around and say kasta smuts.

Example sentences:

Jag är utsatt för en smutskastningskampanj

I’m the victim of a smear campaign

Påståendena är ett försök att smutskasta oss

The claims are an attempt at making us look bad

Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is available to order. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it. It is also possible to buy your copy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Bokus or Adlibris.