Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. Anglo-Ind.) lit. ‘sister-fucker’ and thus used generally as a strong insult; for British (mis)understanding of the real strength of the term, note citation 1886 and subseq. early 20C examples.

1792		A. Dirom Narrative of Campaign in India 147: The officer (of Tippoo’s troops) who led, on being challenged in Moors answered (Agari que logue), ‘We belong to the advance’—the title of Lally’s brigade, supposing the people he saw to be their own Europeans, whose uniform also is red; but soon discovering his mistake the commandant called out (Feringhy Banchoot!—chelow) ‘they are the rascally English! Make off’; in which he set the corps a ready example [Y&B].
1796		J. Gilchrist Grammar of the Hindoostanee Lang. 52: Partly preserved in bhanja, a sister’s son, and in the common but indecent word b?hanchod, or as we will have it banchoot; without knowing that its reflective insinuation, when thus corrupted, very properly punishes whoever make use of such unbecoming expressions.
1801		G. Hadley Compendious Grammar (5 edn) 72: Bhun-choot, bette-choot, mau-kau-choot, baup-kau-loura, are obscene terms of abuse, alluding to the sister, daughter, mother, and father of the object thereof. It is surprising that even the better sort of people use them.
1813		Papers Relating to East India Affairs 14 Apr. 32: Sree Kissen Sing, one of the prisoners now present, said, Be quiet, Banchoot, it is my master’s orders not to molest the beebee saheb and the baba, but to beat Mr. Clarke and his people, and turn them out from the premises.
1828		Asiatic Journal and Monthly Misc. Oct. 487/2: A British officer [...] using a demeanour and language highly insulting to the Rajah of that country and his people, particularly in applying to him the word ‘banchoot’.
1830		Calcutta Mag. IV cxci: They came from behind the house to the front and some surrounded it to prevent us escaping, Mr. Yonge said ‘take hold of the Banchoot; whatever it may cost I will may’.
a.1834		in G. Witt Indian Drawings Scrapbook (British Museum Anthropology Library) (1865) n.p.: Bhanchute, ‘F__k your sister’.
1848		M. Rafter Savindroog I 218: ‘What claim dost thou pretend to, Banchoot?’ demanded Kempé in a voice choked with passion.
1852		C.P. Brown Zillah Dict. 6: BANCHOOT, H. Villain, wretch.
1855		M. Rafter Percy Blake III 219: They would salute me with a volley of oaths and imprecations, exclaiming, ‘Feringhee Banchoot! Teereemaukachoot!’ and other equally brutal and offensive terms.
1879		F.T. Pollok Spoerr in British Burma 195: The poor mahout — my first one — was fearfully mauled ; his foot was crunched to pieces, and yet he said nothing, but that the tigress was a banchoot.
1886		Yule & Burnell Hobson-Jobson (1994) 56: banchoot, beteechoot, ss. Terms of abuse, which we would hesitate to print if their odious meaning were not known ‘to the general.’ If it were known to the Englishmen who sometimes use the words, we believe there are few who would not shrink from such brutality.
1894		F.W.T. Pollok Incidents of Foreign Sport & Travel 15: ‘[B]ut the Tahsildar – may his mother and all his female relations be defiled! – is a banshoot and thinks he can do as he likes’.
1901		Punch 121 132: ‘Ere, Bill, I hask yer, ‘oo are they a-kiddin’? / Har the ’ole barnshoot, barmy on the crumpet / Plyin’ ol’ Rummuns.
1905		A. Binstead Mop Fair 189: She was imprisoned [...] for applying the term ‘a nasty, insulting old barn-choote’ to a brigadier-general.
1916		P.C. Wren Driftwood Spars 230: ‘Jao, I tell yer!’ repeated Horace, rather proud of his grasp of the vernacular. ‘Slope, barnshoot’.
1923		Tweed Dly (Murwillumbah, NSW) 10 Mar. 6/3: [heading] HINDUS AND MOHAMMEDANS. A Peep into Mystic India. (By ‘Banshut Khan).
1933		‘George Orwell’ Down & Out in Paris & London 128: [T]ake the word ‘barnshoot’ — corruption of the Hindustani word bahinchut. A vile and unforgivable insult in India, this word is a piece of gentle badinage in England. I have even seen it in a school text-book.
1934		‘George Orwell’ Burmese Days (1986) 118: ‘I had to stand over the dirzi calling him bahinchut to get them finished in time’.
1936		Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 15 May 24/5: ‘Then I gave him a torrent of Hindustani abuse [...] I’m not fluent by any means, but, damn it all, any sea man down at the docks knows when you are calling him a soor ka butcha or a banshut’.
1940		J. MacLaren-Ross ‘A Bit of a Smash in Madras’ in Memoirs of the Forties (1984) 286: The dirty bainchut [...] D’you know what he told me outside?
1949		E. Marshall Gypsy Sixpence 365: ‘Why didn’t you tell me, you barnshoot!’Barnshoot was the most comprehensive and possibly most obscene insult in all Hindustani, and I had no idea she knew it.
1952		‘Hall Hunter’ Bengal Tiger 252: ‘I believe the barnshoot sent his son to find who was after us and make a deal with them’.
1956		A. Burgess Time for a Tiger (2000) 99: ‘Banchoad!’ The final insult. The Bengali’s launched punch sent the glasses and bottles flying.
1964		A. La Guma Threefold Cord 71: Barnshoot! No pay, no water.
1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1982		S. Rushdie Midnight’s Children 382: [N]ow Tai Bibi leaning out of a window shouts, ‘Hey, bhaenchud! Hey, little sister-sleeper, where you running?’.
1992		R. Menon Hunt for K 141: The man behind him cursed softly, ‘Bahanchod’.
2001		R. Joshi Last Jet-Engine Laugh 258: ‘Welcome to real life! Here there is no retrospective, baanchod, here is only futurospective!’.
2003		A. Gill Flight to Pakistan 352: P’haen chode – madre chode kutti da puttar: sister fucker, mother fucker, son of a bitch.
2003		D. Mehra ‘The Garden’ in Ploughshares 29 (1) 150: ‘Stop playing with yourself, bhenchod, save something for your rich girlfriend’.
2003		G.D. Roberts Shantaram 222: ‘The bahin chudh has been bashing his wife all morning’.
2006		G. Malkani Londonstani (2007) 4: U bhanchod b callin us lot Paki one more time n I swear we’ll cut’chu up, innit.
2007		P. Chowdhry Contentious Marriages, Eloping Couples 113: In terms of abuses, those relating to daughters, sisters, and mother, like betichodh (daughter-fucker) or behanchodh (sister-fucker) or machodh (mother-fucker) [...] are the ones most likely to arouse violence.
2008		A. Ghosh Sea of Poppies 44: ‘Wait till you hear the barnshoot bucking in English’.
2008		S. Shankar Desi Land 115: In the Desi version of the dozens, behen chod, or ‘sister fucker,’ is usually preferred to madar chod, the familiar American favorite, ‘motherfucker’.
2008		J. Singh Chef 109: Most of the mountain peaks here do not have names. So we give them names. [...] Sometimes we give names which are abuses in our language: Ma-chod, bahen-chod, bhon-sadi-day. We all our enemies Pakis or sulahs. They call us Hindu cunts. Those ma-chods, behn-chods, bhon-sadi-days. Mother fuckers. Sister fuckers.
2008		R. Barrett Aghor Medicine 190: Ramuji actually used the term máda chod (motherfucker) in this story. However, he was likely offering a contemporary interpretation of bahan chod (sister fucker), which had been a more popular expletive before the Western media began to have an influence.
2008		S. Warrier Homecoming 3: ‘Where do you think you’re going, bhenchod, without showing me your papers?’.
2010		S.B. Shinde Kkarm n.p.: ‘I know yaar, even you might have fucked her but I loved her, bhenchod’.
2010		B. Larriva Seed 144: Anand nodded, his lip curling into a sneer. ‘He sleeps with his sister – a bahenchod’.
2010		Rampuri Autobiog. of a Sadhu 131: Bhairon Puri Baba’s name kept coming up and often, in the same sentence and in close proximity, was the word bahinchut or what we may translate as sister-fucker.
2023		Twitter 29 Apr. 🌐 As a Welsh-Panjabi woman, I’d like to say ‘What a bhenchod’ or ‘Cont’. In my language, Panjabi, this means ‘What a sisterfucker’. In my other language, Welsh, we’d call him a ‘cont’.