Cagando leches
backShitting milk.
at top speed; **at top speed**; **as fast as possible**; **like a bat out of hell**; **at breakneck speed**; **to leg it**; **to tear off**
Cagando leches means very fast, at top speed, like a bat out of hell, or as fast as possible.
Salió cagando leches cuando vio a la policía.
He took off like a bat out of hell when he saw the police.
Vete cagando leches antes de que llegue.
Get out of here, quick!
Tuve que ir cagando leches al hospital.
I had to get to the hospital as fast as possible.
El coche salió cagando leches.
The car took off at top speed.
Cuando empezó a llover, recogimos todo cagando leches.
When it started raining, we packed everything up as fast as possible.
It is normally used to describe someone moving, leaving or doing something extremely quickly.
The full expression is usually:
Ir / salir / venir cagando leches.
- runs away very quickly
- leaves somewhere in a hurry
- drives extremely fast
- rushes to do something
- arrives or moves at great speed
It belongs to the living, colloquial layer of the language, where a striking phrase is enough to make it stick.
The expression belongs to the highly productive Spanish tradition of creating comic and deliberately obscene intensifiers.
The verb cagar ("to shit") is used metaphorically to suggest an extreme or uncontrolled action, while leche adds an absurd element that makes the phrase memorable.
The important point is that cagando leches should be understood as an emphatic slang expression for going extremely fast, rather than as a literal reference to digestion.
The expression is particularly characteristic of informal spoken Spanish in Spain.
It is stronger and more vulgar than:
A toda leche.
which can also mean very fast.
Compare:
Fue a toda leche.
→ He went very fast.
Fue cagando leches.
→ He went bloody fast / He tore off.
The second is considerably more vulgar.
Spanish has a remarkable collection of informal expressions meaning "very quickly":
- Cagando leches → extremely fast.
- A toda leche → at full speed.
- A toda hostia → at top speed, very vulgar.
- Salir pitando → to dash off.
- Salir disparado → to shoot off.
- Correr que se las pela → to run extremely fast.
The interesting thing about cagando leches is that its comic absurdity is part of its force: the more ridiculous the literal image, the more emphatic the expression becomes. ```
Do not translate:
Salió cagando leches.
literally.
A natural translation would be:
He took off.
He tore off.
He took off like a bat out of hell.
He legged it. (British informal)
The best translation depends on how much of the original vulgarity you want to preserve.
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