Female Devil

November 17, 2021 12:07 PM

I am looking for an accurate Spanish phrase for "female devil" or "she devil." I've found ella diablo, and el diablo feminino. I thought it might be el diabla. But the situation in a dramatic script is a Hispanic woman is calling another woman a devil. What would she say and how would she say it so as to be correct?
posted by CollectiveMind to Society & Culture (12 answers total)

You probably want "la diabla." The rest of these are either ungrammatical or kind of weird.

But honestly, you should run the whole chunk of dialogue past a Spanish-speaker to be sure the phrase fits the context.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:18 PM on November 17, 2021 [7 favorites]

la diabla sounds right to me. You might get away with la demoña too.
posted by jquinby at 12:30 PM on November 17, 2021 [2 favorites]

Ah - also, there might be regional slang that fits the scene better - Mexican versus, say, Cuban or Puerto Rican. If you can find a native speaker from the particular country/region you're writing for, you might get the perfect word(s).
posted by jquinby at 12:33 PM on November 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

My Peruvian wife prefers demoña. A diabla could be just mischievous or cheeky-- demoña is serious.

(If you're not sure when to use el/la, please run any dialog past a native speaker.)
posted by zompist at 12:56 PM on November 17, 2021 [15 favorites]

Diablesa, not diabla. Demonia is spelled without ñ if you want to go that route
posted by O9scar at 2:39 PM on November 17, 2021

I'm a native speaker, from Colombia. I'd say "eres un demonio" (doesn't matter that demonio is masculine, it may apply to both women and men in the conversation you referenced). Or "eres diabólica" (but here it's used as an adjective, not a noun). Diabla I've never heard or seen in writing. Ella diablo definitely doesn't exist. Diablo femenino sounds like a theoretical construct, not something to call anybody in a conversation.
posted by MrMisterio at 2:40 PM on November 17, 2021 [8 favorites]

Non-native speaker here, una/la diabla and diablita (which is diminutive and therefore more affectionate) are in a bunch of lyrics in songs, typically sung by men about women.
posted by vegartanipla at 4:47 PM on November 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

“Ella diablo” is literally just the words “she” (ella) and “devil” (diablo) one after the other. It doesn’t mean anything.
posted by mekily at 6:42 PM on November 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

In argentinian spanish, la diabla wouldn't really capture the spirit of she-devil...it's just "female devil". Something closer would be "la perra" or "la conchuda", but there isn't really a good direct translation.
posted by conifer at 3:25 AM on November 18, 2021

The RAE are happy with both diabla and diablesa: https://twitter.com/RAEinforma/status/1339535938226106375?t=SNIXeCm4KS-WVVgE7koqog&s=19
posted by gregjones at 6:36 AM on November 18, 2021

"Diabla" and (better) "diablesa" are correct in Spain, as well as expressions like "ella es un demonio" ("she's a devil") but you should specify a country and maybe an idea of the meaning you want if you need a particular usage to be believable to that country, because idiomatic expressions don't always translate word for word to English.
posted by sukeban at 12:33 PM on November 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

(For example, I think a very angry woman would be more likely to call another woman a "bruja"/ witch or any other insult of the whore-slut-bitch type than a "female devil")
posted by sukeban at 12:36 PM on November 18, 2021 [3 favorites]